Jessie hung her golden head in cruel disappointment, having hoped that a good fortune might have been promised from the reading of her little hand, while the madame continued briskly:
“Come, now, you will sit here in the anteroom with this bit of sewing until the doorbell rings, then you will answer it, usher the caller in here, and come to me for instructions. Will you remember this?”
“Oh, yes, madame,” sitting down obediently with the roll of ruffling madame had given her to hemstitch, eager to be alone with her sad thoughts.
Sad they were, indeed, poor Jessie, thus wrenched from all she had known and loved in the past, and thrown alone on the world, to face the untried future.
Standing with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet.
At the clanging of the doorbell she started quickly to her feet with a strange, inexplicable throb of the heart.
She flew out into the hall and turned the doorknob to admit the caller.
Had she guessed that it was the little god Cupid knocking, would she have unbarred the door?