Amelius laughed. “Why haven’t you put it on?” he asked.
She sat down in a corner, and looked at her work-basket, instead of looking at Amelius. “It doesn’t fit me so well as it did,” she answered. “I am obliged to alter it.”
Amelius looked at her—at the charming youthful figure that had filled out, at the softly-rounded outline of the face with no angles and hollows in it now. “Is it the dressmaker’s fault?” he asked slyly.
Her eyes were still on the basket. “It’s my fault,” she said. “You remember what a poor little skinny creature I was, when you first saw me. I—you won’t like me the worse for it, will you?—I am getting fat. I don’t know why. They say happy people get fat. Perhaps that’s why. I’m never hungry, and never frightened, and never miserable now—” She stopped; her dress slipped from her lap to the floor. “Don’t look at me!” she said—and suddenly put her hands over her face.
Amelius saw the tears finding their way through the pretty plump fingers, which he remembered so shapeless and so thin. He crossed the room, and touched her gently on the shoulder. “My dear child! have I said anything to distress you?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“I don’t know.” She hesitated; looked at him; and made a desperate effort to tell him what was in her mind. “I’m afraid you’ll get tired of me. There’s nothing about me to make you pity me now. You seem to be—not quite the same—no! it isn’t that—I don’t know what’s come to me—I’m a greater fool than ever. Give me my lesson, Amelius! please give me my lesson!”
Amelius produced the books, in some little surprise at Sally’s extraordinary anxiety to begin her lessons, while the unaltered dress lay neglected on the carpet at her feet. A discreet abstract of the history of England, published for the use of young persons, happened to be at the top of the books. The system of education under Amelius recognized the laws of chance: they began with the history, because it turned up first. Sally read aloud; and Sally’s master explained obscure passages, and corrected occasional errors of pronunciation, as she went on. On that particular morning, there was little to explain and nothing to correct. “Am I doing it well today?” Sally inquired, on reaching the end of her task.
“Very well, indeed.”