Aunt Helen took me into the wide old drawing-room, now brilliantly lighted.  A heavy lamp was on each of the four brackets in the corners, and another swung from the centre of the ceiling, and candelabra threw many lights from the piano.  Never before had I seen this room in such a blaze of light.  During the last week or two aunt Helen and I had occupied it every night, but we never lighted more than a single candle on the piano.  This had been ample light for our purpose.  Aunt Helen would sing in her sweet sad voice all the beautiful old songs I loved, while I curled myself on a mat at her side and read books—­the music often compelling me to forget the reading, and the reading occasionally rendering me deaf to the music; but through both ever came the solemn rush of the stream outside in its weird melancholy, like a wind ceaselessly endeavouring to outstrip a wild vain regret which relentlessly pursued.

“Your uncle Julius always has the drawing-room lighted like this; he does not believe in shadowy half light—­calls it sentimental bosh,” said aunt Helen in explanation.

“Is uncle like that?” I remarked, but my question remained unanswered.  Leaving a hand-mirror with me, aunt Helen had slipped away.

One wall of the drawing-room was monopolized by a door, a big bookcase, and a heavy bevelled-edged old-fashioned mirror—­the two last-mentioned articles reaching from floor to ceiling.  Since my arrival the face of the mirror had been covered, but this evening the blue silken curtains were looped up, and it was before this that I stood.

I looked, and looked again in pleased surprise.  I beheld a young girl with eyes and skin of the clearest and brightest, and lips of brilliant scarlet, and a chest and pair of arms which would pass muster with the best.  If Nature had been in bad humour when moulding my face, she had used her tools craftily in forming my figure.  Aunt Helen had proved a clever maid and dressmaker.  My pale blue cashmere dress fitted my fully developed yet girlish figure to perfection.  Some of my hair fell in cunning little curls on my forehead; the remainder, tied simply with a piece of ribbon, hung in thick waves nearly to my knees.  My toilet had altered me almost beyond recognition.  It made me look my age—­sixteen years and ten months—­whereas before, when dressed carelessly and with my hair plastered in a tight coil, people not knowing me would not believe that I was under twenty.  Joy and merriment lit up my face, which glowed with youth, health, and happiness, which rippled my lips in smiles, which displayed a splendid set of teeth, and I really believe that on that night I did not look out of the way ugly.

I was still admiring my reflection when aunt Helen returned to say that Everard and uncle Julius were smoking on the veranda and asking for me.

“What do you think of yourself, Sybylla?”

“Oh, aunt Helen, tell me that there is something about me not completely hideous!”