On a couch by one of the windows lay Miss Jilian herself, wrapped in a pale-green bed-gown, red slippers on her feet, and one of Mr. Richardson’s novels in her hands. Through the open window came the constant drone of the bees that were working the honeysuckle under the window-ledge. The monotonous clicking of a needle imitated the ticking of a death-scarab against the wainscoting. A little old woman in a white mob-cap and a black-stuff gown sat sewing at a little distance from the couch, her red-knuckled hands moving busily over the lace and linen in her lap. Every now and again her peering, short-sighted eyes would fix themselves with a mute, inquiring kindliness on Miss Hardacre’s face, as though her thoughts were busy as her hands.
Alas for Miss Jilian’s tawny fleece of hair! The golden masses had fallen to the shears, and nothing but a sharp, crisp aureole remained. On a little table beside the couch lay a black silk mask, a hand-mirror, a powder box and puff, and a rosewood case that told of Dutch pink and Chinese paints, lip-salves, wash-balls, and ointments scented with orange and with jessamine. Even these inanimate things gave a pathetic significance to the scene, hinting at the havoc disease had wrought upon poor Jilian’s comeliness. The truth was evident enough to the most casual of glances. Angry pits disfiguring cheeks and forehead, eyes injected and inflamed, the lids red and half empty as to lashes.
It was plain that Mr. Richardson’s sentimentalities tended rather to aggravate Miss Hardacre’s troubles to herself. She laid down the book betimes, took up her glass, toyed with it awhile as though dreading its candor, and then compelled herself to snatch a glimpse at her own face. She frowned at the reflection, and put the glass aside with a gesture of impatience. Poor child, the chastening she was receiving seemed over-hard and malicious despite the fact that she had been courting bitterness by the cultivation of her own vanities. For Jilian, a month’s sickness had changed the whole complexion of earth and of heaven. She had none of the comfortable religious spirit in her that creates a passive heroism out of the renunciation of her own comeliness. She was of the world, and loved every pretty stitch and glistening gew-gaw and silken flower in its gay attire, and saw nothing in quiet sanctity that could recompense her soul.