“Is that your best frock, Miss Hilton?” asked Mrs. Mason, in a half-dissatisfied tone, turning Ruth about; for it was only her Sunday black silk, and was somewhat worn and shabby.

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Ruth quietly.

“Oh! indeed.  Then it will do” (still the half-satisfied tone).  “Dress, young ladies, you know, is a very secondary consideration.  Conduct is everything.  Still, Miss Hilton, I think you should write and ask your guardian to send you some money for another gown.  I am sorry I did not think of it before.

“I do not think he would send any if I wrote,” answered Ruth, in a low voice.

“He was angry when I wanted a shawl, when the cold weather set in.”

Mrs. Mason gave her a little push of dismissal, and Ruth fell into the ranks by her friend, Miss Wood.

“Never mind, Ruthie; you’re prettier than any of them,” said a merry, good-natured girl, whose plainness excluded her from any of the envy of rivalry.

“Yes; I know I am pretty,” said Ruth sadly; “but I am sorry I have no better gown, for this is very shabby.  I am ashamed of it myself, and I can see Mrs. Mason is twice as much ashamed.  I wish I need not go.  I did not know we should have to think about our own dress at all, or I should not have wished to go.”

“Never mind, Ruth,” said Jenny, “you’ve been looked at now, and Mrs. Mason will soon be too busy to think about you and your gown.”

“Did you hear Ruth Hilton say she knew she was pretty?” whispered one girl to another, so loudly that Ruth caught the words.

“I could not help knowing,” answered she simply, “for many people have told me so.”

At length these preliminaries were over, and they were walking briskly through the frosty air; the free motion was so inspiriting that Ruth almost danced along, and quite forgot all about shabby gowns and grumbling guardians.  The shire-hall was even more striking than she had expected.  The sides of the staircase were painted with figures that showed ghostly in the dim light, for only their faces looked out of the dark, dingy canvas, with a strange fixed stare of expression.

The young milliners had to arrange their wares on tables in the ante-room, and make all ready before they could venture to peep into the hall-room, where the musicians were already tuning their instruments, and where one or two charwomen (strange contrast, with their dirty, loose attire, and their incessant chatter, to the grand echoes of the vaulted room!) were completing the dusting of benches and chairs.

They quitted the place as Ruth and her companions entered.  They had talked lightly and merrily in the ante-room, but now their voices were hushed, awed by the old magnificence of the vast apartment.  It was so large that objects showed dim at the further end, as through a mist.  Full-length figures of county worthies hung around, in all varieties of costume, from the days of Holbein to the present time.  The lofty roof was indistinct, for the lamps were not fully lighted yet; while through the richly-painted Gothic window at one end the moonbeams fell, many-tinted, on the floor, and mocked with their vividness the struggles of the artificial light to illuminate its little sphere.