It was inevitable that Lydia should have hoped that her sister might marry early.  And one man she knew in whom—­she scarcely could have told you why—­her confidence was so strong that she would freely have entrusted him with Thyrza’s fate.  Thyrza could not bring herself to think of him as a husband.  It was with Ackroyd that Lydia’s thoughts were busy as she lay wakeful.  Before to-night she had not pondered so continuously on what she knew of him.  For some two years he had been an acquaintance, through the Bowers, and she had felt glad when it was plain that he sought Thyrza’s society.  ‘Yes,’ she had said to herself, ’I like him, and feel that he is to be relied upon.’  Stories, to be sure, had reached her ears; something of an over-fondness for conviviality; but she had confidence.  To-night she seemed called upon to review all her impressions.  Why?  Nothing new had happened.  She longed for sleep, but it only came when dawn was white upon the blind.

When it was time to rise, neither spoke.  Lydia prepared the breakfast as usual—­it seemed quite natural that she should do nearly all the work of the home—­and they sat down to it cheerlessly.

Since daybreak a mist had crept over the sky; it thinned the sunlight to a suffusion of grey and gold.  Within the house there was the silence of Sunday morning; the street was still, save for the jodeling of a milkman as he wheeled his clattering cans from house to house.  In that London on the other side of Thames, known to these girls with scarcely less of vagueness than to simple dwellers in country towns, the autumn-like air was foretaste of holiday; the martyrs of the Season and they who do the world’s cleaner work knew that rest was near, spoke at breakfast of the shore and the mountain.  Even to Lydia, weary after her short sleep and unwontedly dejected, there came a wish that it were possible to quit the streets for but one day, and sit somewhere apart under the open sky.  It was not often that so fantastic a dream visited her.

In dressing, Thyrza had left her hair unbraided.  Lydia always did that for her.  When the table was cleared, the former took up a story-paper which she bought every week, and made a show of reading.  Lydia went about her accustomed tasks.

Presently she took a brush and comb and went behind her sister’s chair.  She began to unloosen the rough coils in which the golden hair was pinned together.  It was always a joy to her to bathe her hands in the warm, soft torrent.  With delicate care she combed out every intricacy, and brushed the ordered tresses till the light gleamed on their smooth surface; then with skilful fingers she wove the braid, tying it with a blue ribbon so that the ends hung loose.  The task completed, it was her custom to bend over the little head and snatch an inverted kiss, always a moment of laughter.  This morning she omitted that; she was moving sadly away, when she noticed that the face turned a little, a very little.