l. She darned and patched the
tattered hangings with a wonderful neatness, and the hours she spent at
work in the chamber were to her almost as sacred as hours spent at
religious duty, or as those nuns and novices give to embroidering altar-
cloths. There was a brightness in the room that seemed in no other in
the house, and the lingering essences in the air of it were as incense to
her. In secrecy she even busied herself with keeping things in better
order than Rebecca, Mistress Clorinda's woman, had ever had time to do
before. She also contrived to get into her own hands some duties that
were Rebecca's own. She could mend lace cleverly and arrange
riband-knots with taste, and even change the fashion of a gown. The hard-
worked tirewoman was but too glad to be relieved, and kept her secret
well, being praised many times for the set or fashion of a thing into
which she had not so much as set a needle. Being a shrewd baggage, she
was wise enough always to relate to Anne the story of her mistress's
pleasure, having the wit to read in her delight that she would be
encouraged to fresh effort.

At times it so befell that, when Anne went into the bed-chamber, she
found the beauty there, who, if she chanced to be in the humour, would
detain her in her presence for a space and bewitch her over again. In
sooth, it seemed that she took a pleasure in showing her female adorer
how wondrously full of all fascinations she could be. At such times
Anne's plain face would almost bloom with excitement, and her shot
pheasant's eyes would glow as if beholding a goddess.

She neither saw nor heard more of the miniature on the riband. It used
to make her tremble at times to fancy that by some strange chance it
might still be under the bed, and that the handsome face smiled and the
blue eyes gazed in the very apartment where she herself sat and her
sister was robed and disrobed in all her beauty.

She used all her modest skill in fitting to her own shape and
refurnishing the cast-off bits of finery bestowed upon her. It was all
set to rights long before Clorinda recalled to mind that she had promised
that Anne should sometime see her chance visitors take their dish of tea
with her.

But one day, for some cause, she did remember, and sent for her.

Anne ran to her bed-chamber and donned her remodelled gown with shaking
hands. She laughed a little hysterically as she did it, seeing her plain
snub-nosed face in the glass. She t