tic happiness and mystery. She
listened long, looking often at the clock on the wall. "She must be
gone," she thought, meaning Miss Hart. She was almost sure that the
figure which she had seen flitting under her window in the moonlight
was that of the school-teacher. Finally she could not resist the
temptation any longer. She hurried down the corridor until she
reached No. 20. She tapped and waited, then she tapped and waited
again. There was no response. Hannah tried the door. It was locked.
She took her chambermaid's key and unlocked the door, looking around
her fearfully. Then she opened the door and slid in. She locked the
door behind her. Then straight to the closet she went, and that
beautiful lace robe seemed to float out towards her. Hannah slipped
off her own gown, and in a few moments she stood before the
looking-glass, transformed.

She was so radiant, so pleased, that a flush came out on her thick
skin; her eyes gleamed blue. The lace gown fitted her very well. She
turned this way and that. After all, her neck was not bad, not as
white, perhaps, as Miss Farrel's, but quite lovely in shape. She
walked glidingly across the room, looking over her shoulder at the
trail of lace. She was unspeakably happy. She had a lover, and she
was a woman in a fine gown for the first time in her life. The gown
was not her own, but she would have one like it. She did not realize
that this gown was not hers. She was fairly radiant with the
possession of her woman's birthright, this poor farmer's daughter, in
whom the instincts of her kind were strong. She glided across the
room many times. She surveyed herself in the glass. Every time she
looked she seemed to herself more beautiful, and there was something
good and touching in this estimation of herself, for she seemed to
see herself with her lover's eyes as well as her own.

Finally she sat down in Miss Farrel's rocker; she crossed her knees
and viewed with delight the fleecy fall of lace to the floor. Then
she fell to dreaming, and her dreams were good. In that gown of
fashion she dreamed the dreams of the life to which the women of her
race were born. She dreamed of her good housewifery; she dreamed of
the butter she would make; she dreamed of her husband coming home to
meals all ready and well cooked. She dreamed, underneath the other
dreams, of children coming home. She had no realization of the time
she sat there. At last she started and turned white. She had heard a
ke