Mona had somehow come to regard me with less animosity than she did most of the household. So she let me take her in my arms without much opposition, and gave only one more yell when her father, while wishing me good-night, shook hands with me and accidentally touched her dirty little shoe. I took her into the house and gave her to Sarah in the hall; then I went into the schoolroom to replace the dissipated volume of Guizot that had been out all night among its more sober brethren, and then, moved by some spring of vanity, took my candle to the mantelpiece and looked at myself in the glass above it. I suppose no girl can hear herself called a beautiful woman for the first time, no matter by whom, without a slight thrill of gratification. To be called pretty falls, I suppose, at some time or other, to the lot of most girls; but the other term implies a higher measure of attractiveness, and I certainly was not insensible to the pleasure of hearing it applied to me. I had lived such a very quiet life with my mother, and had had so few acquaintances, that I had never known flattery of any kind. The thought that flashed through my mind as I looked at my dark gray eyes, brighter than usual, and at my cheeks, flushed with gratified vanity, was--“Does Mr. Laurence Reade think me--beautiful?” I was too much absorbed in my vain contemplation of myself, and in the foolish thoughts to which it gave rise, to notice that I was not alone in the room. Suddenly I was startled, as I well deserved to be, by a harsh ironical voice breaking in upon the silence of the room. “Yes, it’s a pretty face enough now, and you do right to set store by it, for it won’t last pretty long--not long; in a few years it will be all lines and wrinkles, and not worth looking at; and you’ll turn away in disgust from the glass, thinking of how you used to look, and how the men used to look at you--the fools!” I had turned, and was looking at Sarah’s hard, cruel face as she stood, with Mona still in her arms, her eyes flashing scornfully on me as she hissed out the spiteful words. I felt ashamed of my vanity, though, after all, it seemed harmless enough; and I felt sorry for her, for she spoke so bitterly that I was sure she must be thinking of the changes a few years of anxiety and hard work had wrought in herself; so I said gently-- “I suppose we women all think more than we ought about our looks sometimes, Sarah; but, after all, they are a very important matter to every woman, and make a great deal of difference to her life. You know you must be glad not to be ugly, Sarah.” I own this was a little bit of innocent flattery, for I did think her very ugly--and I thought I had never seen her look so hideous as she did as she stood there glaring at me--but I was anxious to soothe her at all hazards, and I was thankful to see that the bait took. “Handsome is that handsome does,” she said less viciously; and, with a toss of her head, she left the room. CHAPTER VII.