r for more than an
instant, when he would rouse himself with a start and turn away.

She had been for a month or two less given to passionate outbreaks,
having indeed decided that it was to her interest as a young lady and a
future great one to curb herself. Her tirewoman, Rebecca, had begun to
dare to breathe more freely when she was engaged about her person, and
had, in truth, spoken of her pleasanter fortune among her fellows in the
servants' hall.

But a night or two after the visitor took his departure, she gave way to
such an outburst as even Rebecca had scarce ever beheld, being roused to
it by a small thing in one sense, though in yet another perhaps great
enough, since it touched upon the despoiling of one of her beauties.

She was at her toilet-table being prepared for the night, and her long
hair brushed and dressed before retiring. Mistress Wimpole had come in
to the chamber to do something at her bidding, and chancing to stand
gazing at her great and heavy fall of locks as she was waiting, she
observed a thing which caused her, foolish woman that she was, to give a
start and utter an unwise exclamation.

"Madam!" she gasped--"madam!"

"What then!" quoth Mistress Clorinda angrily. "You bring my heart to my
throat!"

"Your hair!" stammered Wimpole, losing all her small wit--"your beauteous
hair! A lock is gone, madam!"

Clorinda started to her feet, and flung the great black mass over her
white shoulder, that she might see it in the glass.

"Gone!" she cried. "Where? How? What mean you? Ah-h!"

Her voice rose to a sound that was well-nigh a scream. She saw the
rifled spot--a place where a great lock had been severed jaggedly--and it
must have been five feet long.

She turned and sprang upon her woman, her beautiful face distorted with
fury, and her eyes like flames of fire. She seized her by each shoulder
and boxed her ears until her head spun round and bells rang within it.

"'Twas you!" she shrieked. "'Twas you--she-devil-beast--slut that you
are! 'Twas when you used your scissors to the new head you made for me.
You set it on my hair that you might set a loop--and in your sluttish way
you snipped a lock by accident and hid it from me."

She beat her till her own black hair flew about her like the mane of a
fury; and having used her hands till they were tired, she took her brush
from the table and beat her with that till the room echoed with the blows
on the stout shoulders.

"Mi