“Well, she was looking in the glass at herself, and whatever do you think she found?”
“Oh, whut?” gasped Nance, breathless with eagerness.
Finette, whose coarse, unscrupulous nature always took revenge in private for the snubs her mistress often gave her, giggled softly again and answered:
“The first gray hair in that red hair of hers.”
“Oh, my! she is a-gitten old.”
“Yes; and she cut a caper, I tell you! Actually threw herself down and cried like somebody was dead. Then she got up, glared at herself, and made me pull the gray hair out and burn it in a hurry. She was as cross as could be after that.”
“Lordy!” giggled Nance, who had no love for her young mistress.
“Yes, indeed,” said Finette. “Oh, it cuts her to be so much older than the boy she married. She hates it. She’s as jealous as—a—a—tigress!” said Finette. “But it’s cool, ain’t it? Let’s go in,” and she turned back, saying to herself: “I’ll have to slip out after she’s abed, drat her!”
They both vanished, and the next moment Norman de Vere appeared in the door-way of the summer-house, from whose shelter he had heard every word that had passed outside.
His eyes blazed with indignation, and it was with difficulty that he had restrained himself from confronting the treacherous maid and sternly rebuking her for her flippancy.