The longest winter-months melt away at last into spring, and so did these. May came with her promises and blights of promise. Recalling, this time, how sunshine would come with the latter end of May through the dark walls, I begged of Mr. Clarkson that a favorite pattern of mine might be put upon the looms. Its design was imagined by one of my companions in my later walks. He was an artist of the mills, and had been trying to bring within the rigid lines that were required some of the grace and freedom of Nature. He had scattered here some water-lilies among broad green leaves. My admiration for Nature, alas! had grown only after severe cultivation among the strange forms which we carpet-makers indulge in with a sort of mimicry of Nature. So I cannot be a fair judge of this, even as a work of art. I see sometimes tapestries in a meadow studded with buttercups, and I fancy patterns for carpets when I see a leaf casting its shadow upon a stone. So I may be forgiven for saying that these water-lilies were dear to me as seeming like Nature, as they were lying upon their green leaves. Mr. Clarkson granted my request, and for a few days, this pattern was woven by the machine. These trial-days I was excited from my usual calmness. The first day the sunshine did not reach the narrow window. The second day we had heavy storm and rain. But the third day, not far from the expected hour, the sunshine burst through the little space. It fell upon my golden threads; it seemed directly to embrace them joyously, to encircle them closely. The sunlight seemed to incorporate itself with the woolly fibre, to conceal itself among the work where the shuttle chose to hide it. I fancied a sort of laughing joy, a clatter and dash in the machinery itself, as though there were a happy time, where was usually only a monotonous whirl. I could scarcely contain myself till noon. When I left my room, I found, on inquiry, that Mr. Clarkson was not in the building, and was to be away all day. I went out into the air for a free breath, and looked up into the glowing sky, yet was glad to go back again to my machines, which I fancied would greet me with an unwonted joy. But, as I passed towards the stairway, I glanced into one of the lower rooms, where some of the clerks were writing. I fancied Mr. Clarkson might be there. There were women employed in this room, and suddenly one who was writing at a desk attracted my attention. I did not see her face; but the impression that her figure gave me haunted me as I passed on. Some one passing me saw my disturbed look. "What have you seen? a ghost?" he asked. "Who is writing in that room? Can you tell me?" I said. "You know them all," was his answer, "except the new-comer, Miss Stuart. Have not you heard the talk of her history,--how the father has failed and died and all that, and how the daughter is glad enough to get work under Mr. Clarkson's patronage?"