"I thank you for your kindness, my good woman," she said. "I will come back here some time and reward you richly, I will indeed. Now I am going. If anybody comes here to ask about me be sure and tell them I have not been here. Do not let them know——"
Whatever else she was going to say died unuttered on her pale lips. Exhausted nature was giving away. She threw up her hands wildly, staggered forward a step, and fell fainting on the floor.
"Poor soul," said the good woman, kneeling down on the floor, and loosening the hat and veil from her head, "she is dead tired-out."
She straightened Lily out upon the floor, and dashed cold water into her white face, but with no success. The swoon was a deep one, and it was fully an hour before the girl was sufficiently revived to be lifted up by the woman's strong arms and laid upon a clean white bed.
"A beauty and no mistake," thought the warm-hearted creature, smoothing back the damp, golden ringlets from the marble white brow on the pillow.
Lily's large, blue eyes opened and looked up at her in amaze.
"Am I sick? Have I been here long?" she inquired, struggling up to a sitting posture and looking out through the window anxiously. "Why, the sun is setting," said she, turning her bewildered face on her kind attendant.
"Yes, you fainted and were a long time coming to," was the answer: "you have been here more than an hour."
Lily slipped down from the bed and began to put on her hat and veil with trembling hands.