n the sitting-room before her ladyship had made any
sign of lifting her heavy head from the pillow. Heavy, indeed, as she
had been too cross and too tired to allow Graves to touch the erection
of powder and puff, which had cost Mr. Perkyns so many sighs.

Griselda had taken down her own hair without help, and had shaken the
powder out of its heavy masses--no easy task, and requiring great
patience.

"I will forswear powder henceforth," she said, as she looked at herself
in the glass. "Lady Betty says truly, powder must go with paint. I will
have neither."

So the long, abundant tresses were left to their own sweet will, their
lustre dimmed by the remains of the powder at the top, but the under
tresses were falling in all their rippling beauty over her shoulders.

Amelia Graves brought her a cup of chocolate and some finger-biscuits,
saying:

"Her ladyship has already had two breakfasts, and after the last has
gone off to sleep again."

"I hope she will remember she promised to go to Mr. Herschel's musical
reunion," Griselda said. "If not, Graves, I must go alone; I must
indeed. You will send the boy Zack for a chair, won't you?"

"More of the gay world! Ah, my dear, I do pity you."

"Gay world! Well, I know nothing that lifts one above it as music does.
I am no longer the pleasure-seeker then?"

Graves shook her head, and, getting a long wrapper, she covered Griselda
with it, and began to comb and brush the hair which nearly touched the
floor as it hung over the back of the chair.

"Come, I will gather the hair up for you. Well, it's a natural gift
coming from God, and the Word says long hair is a glory to a woman, or
I'd say it ought to be cut close. It is like your poor mother's, poor
lady!" It was very seldom that Graves or anyone else referred to the
sister of Mr. Longueville, who had disgraced herself by a _mesalliance_.
"Poor thing!--ah, poor thing! it all came of her love of the world and
the lust of the flesh."

Griselda's proud nature always felt a pain like a sword-thrust when her
dead mother was spoken of.

"Don't talk of her, Graves, unless you can speak kindly. You know I told
you this the other day."

"Well, I don't wish to be unkind; but when a lady of high birth marries
a wretched playwright, a buffoon----"

"Stop!" Griselda exclaimed. "No more of this. If you can be neither
respectful nor kind, say no more."

"Well, my dear, there are times when I see your mother over again in
you, a