“‘T assn’ takken mooch to maake ’er ’appy,” said Mrs. Gale.  For Essy, who had informed her, was not subtle.

* * * * *

But of Ally’s happiness there could be no doubt.  It lapped her, soaked into her like water and air.  Her small head flowered under it and put out its secret colors; the dull gold of her hair began to shine again, her face showed a shallow flush under its pallor; her gray eyes were clear as if they had been dipped in water.  Two slender golden arches shone above them.  They hadn’t been seen there for five years.

“Who would have believed,” said Mary, “that Ally could have looked so pretty?”

Ally’s prettiness (when she gazed at it in the glass) was delicious, intoxicating joy to Ally.  She was never tired of looking at it, of turning round and round to get new views of it, of dressing her hair in new ways to set it off.

“Whatever have you done your hair like that for?” said Mary on a Wednesday when Ally came down in the afternoon with her gold spread out above her ears and twisted in a shining coil on the top of her head.

“To make it grow better,” said Ally.

“Don’t let Papa catch you at it,” said Gwenda, “if you want it to grow any more.”

Gwenda was going out.  She had her hat on, and was taking her walking-stick from the stand.  Ally stared.

“You’re not going out?”

“I am,” said Gwenda.

And she laughed as she went.  She wasn’t going to stay at home for Rowcliffe every Wednesday.

* * * * *

As for Ally, the Vicar did catch her at it.  He caught her the very next Wednesday afternoon.  She thought he had started for Upthorne when he hadn’t.  He was bound to catch her.

For the best looking-glass in the house was in the Vicar’s bedroom.  It went the whole length and width of the wardrobe door, and Ally could see herself in it from head to foot.  And on the Vicar’s dressing-table there lay a large and perfect hand-glass that had belonged to Ally’s mother.  Only by opening the wardrobe door and with the aid of the hand-glass could Ally obtain a satisfactory three-quarters view of her face and figure.

Now, by the Vicar’s magnanimity, his daughters were allowed to use his bedroom twice in every two years, in the spring and in the autumn, for the purpose of trying on their new gowns; but this year they were wearing out last winter’s gowns, and Ally had no business in the Vicar’s bedroom at four o’clock in the afternoon.

She was turning slowly round and round, with her head tilted back over her left shoulder; she had just caught sight of her little white nose as it appeared in a vanishing profile and was adjusting her head at another and still more interesting angle when the Vicar caught her.

He was well in the middle of the room, and staring at her, before she was aware of him.  The wardrobe door, flung wide open, had concealed his entrance, but if Ally had not been blinded and intoxicated with her own beauty she would have seen him before she began smiling, full-face first, then three-quarters, then sideways, a little tilted.