"You're early out," he said at last.
Beth detected something hostile in the tone, and fixed her big fearless grey eyes upon him defiantly. "It's a free country," she said.
"Free or not," he answered drily, "it isn't fit fur no young gell to be out alone at sechun a time. Ye should be indoors gettin' the breakfast."
"Thank you," said Beth, "I've no need to get the breakfast."
"Well, it makes it all the worse," he rejoined; "fur if ye're by way o' bein' a lady, it not on'y means that ye're out wi' no one to tak' care of ye, but that ye've niver been taught to tak' care o' yerself. Lady!" he ejaculated. "Pride and patches! Tak' my advice, lady, go back to yer bed, get yer meed o' sleep, wak' up refreshed, and set to work."
He spat on the grass in a self-satisfied way when he had spoken, and contemplated the sunrise like a man who has done his duty and earned the right to repose.
Beth got up and walked home despondently. She climbed in at the acting-room window, and went to her own room. The sun was shining on the apple-blossom in the orchard opposite, and she looked for the charm of yesterday, but finding only the garish commonplace of fruit-trees in flower with the sun on them, she drew down the blind. Then she took off her hat and jacket, threw herself on her bed, and fell into a heavy sleep, with her brow puckered and the corners of her mouth drooping discontentedly.
The next night she determined to take her meed of sleep, and did not tie the string to her toe. It had been a long lonely day, filled with great dissatisfaction and vague yearnings for companionship; but when she fell asleep she had a happy dream, so vivid that it seemed more real than anything she had seen in her morning ramble. It was eight o'clock in the evening, she dreamt, and there was some one waiting for her under the pear-tree in the garden. The night air was fresh and fragrant. The moonlight shone on the white blossoms overhead, which clustered so close that no ray penetrated to the ground beneath, so that there all was shadowy, but still she could see that there was some one standing in the shade, and she knew that he was waiting for her. She had never seen him before, yet she knew him well and hurried to meet him; and he took her in his arms and kissed her, and his kisses thrilled her with a thrill that remained with her for many a day.
She got up the moment she awoke, and looked about her in a kind of amaze, for everything she saw was transfigured. It was in herself, however, that the light burned which made the world so radiant. As the old apple-trees, warmed by the sun, suddenly blossomed into bridal beauty in the spring, so, in the silent night, between sundown and day-dawn, while she slept, yet another petal of her own manifold nature had unfolded, and in the glow of its loveliness there was nothing of commonplace aspect; for a new joy in life was hers which helped her to discover in all things a hitherto unsuspected charm.
Beth's little life had been full of childish irregularities, the little duties being continually slurred and neglected that the little pleasures might be indulged in the sooner. She was apt to regard bathing, hair-brushing, dressing, and lessons as mere hindrances to some of the particular great businesses of life which specially occupied her—verse-making, for instance, piano-playing, poaching, or praying, whichever happened to be the predominant interest of the moment. But now, on a sudden, the care of her person became of extraordinary importance. All the hints, good and bad, she had had on the subject recurred to her, and she began to put them into practice systematically. She threw the clothes back from her bed to air it the moment she got up, that it might be fresh and sweet to sleep in. Her little bath had hitherto been used somewhat irregularly, but now she fetched hot and cold water for herself, and bathed every day. She brushed her hair glossy, and tightened her stays to make her waist small, and she was sorely dissatisfied because her boots did not pinch her feet. She began to take great care of her hands too, and would do no dusting without gloves on, or dirty work of any kind that was calculated to injure them. She used a parasol when she could, and if she got sunburnt bathing or boating, she washed her face in buttermilk at night, fetched from Fairholm regularly for the purpose. The minds and habits of the young are apt to form themselves in this way out of suggestions let fall by all kinds of people, the worst and most foolish as well as the wisest and best.