“He is son to that Mrs. Bellingham of the Priory, for whom we made the grey satin pelisse,” answered Jenny sleepily.

“That was before my time,” said Ruth.  But there was no answer.  Jenny was asleep.

It was long before Ruth followed her example.  Even on a winter day, it was clear morning light that fell upon her face as she smiled in her slumber.  Jenny would not waken her, but watched her face with admiration; it was So lovely in its happiness.

“She is dreaming of last night,” thought Jenny.

It was true she was; but one figure flitted more than all the rest through her visions.  He presented flower after flower to her in that baseless morning dream, which was all too quickly ended.  The night before she had seen her dead mother in her sleep, and she wakened weeping.  And now she dreamed of Mr. Bellingham, and smiled.

And yet, was this a more evil dream than the other?

The realities of life seemed to cut more sharply against her heart than usual that morning.  The late hours of the preceding nights, and perhaps the excitement of the evening before, had indisposed her to bear calmly the rubs and crosses which beset all Mrs. Mason’s young ladies at times.

For Mrs. Mason, though the first dressmaker in the county, was human after all; and suffered, like her apprentices, from the same causes that affected them.  This morning she was disposed to find fault with everything, and everybody.  She seemed to have risen with the determination of putting the world and all that it contained (her world, at least) to rights before night; and abuses and negligences, which had long passed unreproved, or winked at, were to-day to be dragged to light, and sharply reprimanded.  Nothing less than perfection would satisfy Mrs. Mason at such times.

She had her ideas of justice, too; but they were not divinely beautiful and true ideas; they were something more resembling a grocer’s or tea-dealer’s ideas of equal right.  A little over-indulgence last night was to be balanced by a good deal of over-severity to-day; and this manner of rectifying previous errors fully satisfied her conscience.

Ruth was not inclined for, or capable of, much extra exertion; and it would have tasked all her powers to have pleased her superior.  The work-room seemed filled with sharp calls.  “Miss Hilton! where have you put the blue Persian?  Whenever things are mislaid, I know it has been Miss Hilton’s evening for siding away!”

“Miss Hilton was going out last night, so I offered to clear the work-room for her.  I will find it directly, ma’am,” answered one of the girls.

“Oh, I am well aware of Miss Hilton’s custom of shuffling off her duties upon any one who can be induced to relieve her,” replied Mrs. Mason.

Ruth reddened, and tears sprang to her eyes; but she was so conscious of the falsity of the accusation, that she rebuked herself for being moved by it, and, raising her head, gave a proud look round, as if in appeal to her companions.