"No, thank you, Martha; I can do that perfectly well myself. I am accustomed to use my own hands, and I can take my own time about it."
"But really, miss, I think you should allow me."
"Indeed, indeed, no. There is plenty of time, and I shall go leisurely to work. When the carriage comes just tap at the door and tell me, and I will rejoin my aunt."
When the maid was gone, Betty locked her door. She lighted the candles beside the cheval-glass, and looked at herself in the mirror and laughed. For the first time, with glad surprise and innocent pleasure, she realised how pretty she was. And pretty she was indeed, with her pleasant face, honest eyes, finely arched brows, and twinkling smile that produced dimples in her cheeks.
"There is plenty of time," she said. "I shan't take a hundred years in dressing now that my hair is done."
She yawned. A great heaviness had come over her.
"I really think I shall have a nap first. I am dead sleepy now, and forty winks will set me up for the night."
Then she laid herself upon the bed. A numbing, over-powering lethargy weighed on her, and almost at once she sank into a dreamless sleep. So unconscious was she that she did not hear Martha's tap at the door nor the roll of the carriage as it took her aunt away.
She woke with a start. It was full day.
For some moments she did not realise this fact, nor that she was still dressed in the gown in which she had lain down the previous evening.