er thought: "What have I ever done to prove myself wiser than
they?" Alas for the answer! Hilda hid her face in her hands, and it was
shame instead of anger that now sent the crimson flush over her cheeks.
Her mother despised her! Her mother--perhaps her father too! They loved
her, of course; the tender love had never failed, and would never fail.
They were proud of her too, in a way. And yet they despised her; they
must despise her! How could they help it? Her mother, whose days were a
ceaseless round of work for others, without a thought of herself; her
father, active, energetic, business-like,--what must her life seem to
them? How was it that she had never seen, never dreamed before, that she
was an idle, silly, frivolous girl? The revelation came upon her with
stunning force. These people too, these coarse country people, despised
her and laughed at her! The thought was more than she could bear. She
sprang up, feeling as if she were suffocating, and walked up and down
the little room with hurried and nervous steps. Then suddenly there came
into her mind one sentence of her mother's that Dame Hartley had
repeated: "Hilda has a really noble nature--" What was the rest?
Something about triumphing over the faults and follies which lay
outside. Had her mother really said that? Did she believe, trust in, her
silly daughter? The girl stood still, with clasped hands and bowed head.
The tumult within her seemed to die away, and in its place something was
trembling into life, the like of which Hilda Graham had never known,
never thought of, before; faint and timid at first, but destined to gain
strength and to grow from that one moment,--a wish, a hope, finally a
resolve.

CHAPTER IV.

THE NEW HILDA.

The morning came laughing into Hilda's room, and woke her with such a
flash of sunshine and trill of bird-song that she sprang up smiling,
whether she would or no. Indeed, she felt happier than she could have
believed to be possible. The anger, the despair, even the
self-humiliation and anguish of repentance, were gone with the night.
Morning was here,--a new day and a new life. "Here is the new
Hildegarde!" she cried as she plunged her face into the clear, sparkling
water. "Do you see me, blue dragons? Shake paws, you foolish creatures,
and don't stand ramping and glaring at each other in that way! Here is a
new girl come to see you. The old one was a minx,--do you hear,
dragons?" The dragons heard, but were too poli