ce," said Miss
Hart. "You can't cheat _me_."

Hannah took up a little, ivory-backed nail-polisher which was also on
the wash-stand. "What do you suppose this is?" she asked, timidly, in
an awed whisper.

"How do I know? I never use such things myself, and I never knew
women who did before," said Miss Hart, severely. "I dare say, after
she puts the paint on, she has to use something to smooth it down
where the natural color of the skin begins. How do I know?"

Hannah laid the nail-polisher beside the box of salve. She was very
much in love with the son of the farmer who lived next to her
father's. The next Thursday afternoon was her afternoon off. She
watched her chance, and stole into Miss Farrel's room, applied with
trembling fingers a little of the nail-salve to her cheeks, then
carefully rubbed it all off with the polisher. She then went to her
own room, put on a hat and thick veil, and succeeded in getting out
of the hotel without meeting Miss Hart. She was firmly convinced that
she was painted, and that her cheeks had the lovely peach-bloom of
Miss Farrel's.

It seems sometimes as if one's own conviction concerning one's self
goes a long way towards establishing that of other people. Hannah,
that evening, when she met the young man whom she loved, felt that
she was a beauty like Miss Eliza Farrel, and before she went home he
had told her how pretty she was and asked her to marry him, and
Hannah had consented, reserving the right to work enough longer to
earn a little more money. She wished to be married in a white lace
gown like one in Miss Farrel's closet. Miss Hart had called Hannah in
to look at it one morning when Miss Farrel was at school.

"What do you suppose a school-teacher can want of a dress like this
here in East Westland?" Miss Hart had asked, severely. "She can't
wear it to meeting, or a Sunday-school picnic, or a church sociable,
or even to a wedding in this place. Look at it. It's cut low-neck."

Hannah had looked. That night she had, in the secrecy of her own
room, examined her own shoulders, and decided that although they
might not be as white as Miss Farrel's, they were presumably as well
shaped. She had resolved then and there to be married in a dress like
that. Along with her love-raptures came the fairy dream of the lace
gown. For once in her life she would be dressed like a princess.

When she told Miss Hart she was going to be married, her mistress
sniffed. "You can do just as you l