But “my lady” at that moment was standing with wet eyes and bated breath in a house furnished with palatial magnificence, beside the white velvet casket that held the body of a beautiful young girl of about her own age--a lovely marble mask that, strangely enough, resembled Fair in a high degree, for the beautiful hair lying in loose curls upon the fragrant pillow of white flowers was the same shade of bright-red gold, and the face and features had so subtle a likeness that the neat maid who had been sent to show Fair the necessary alterations she was to make started, and exclaimed: “Gracious, miss, you look very much like poor Miss Azalia did when she was alive.” Fair scarcely noticed the words. She was threading her needle through tears that dimmed her sight, and when the maid went out to call her mistress, the dead girl’s mother, she bent over the girl, and sobbed forlornly: “Oh, you beautiful angel! I wish that Heaven had taken me, instead of you, for you had father, mother, home, and friends, while I am an unhappy orphan, without a friend and without a home.” In her agitation, she did not notice that the door had opened noiselessly, admitting a handsome, pale-faced, elderly woman, dressed in deep, rich black. She paused and listened in amazement to the mournful plaint of the girl who had come from the factory to arrange her daughter’s burial robe. Believing herself quite alone, Fair continued, half deliriously: “How beautiful you are, sweet one! Many must have loved you in your short, happy life; but I have no one to love me while I live, nor to grieve for me when I die. I, who have no more tears left to shed for my own misery, cannot help weeping for you. I love you!” And her tears rained among the white roses and lay glittering upon them like dew. The lady came gliding forward, and stood opposite Fair, gazing with heavy, despairing eyes at the beautiful marble form before her; and then Fair started, and exclaimed falteringly: “I beg your pardon!” “Who are you, child?” asked the lady, in a sad, gentle voice. “I am a sewing girl from the factory. I came to alter this,” she said, pointing to the exquisite robe that enveloped the body of Azalia Howard. “Ah, yes,” said Mrs. Howard, and she indicated what she wished done, and the small alteration was performed in silence, the lady watching the work, and noting, as the maid had done, the striking resemblance of the humble working girl to the dead heiress. Fair finished the task, and lifted from it a face almost as white as the one in the casket. “That is very satisfactory,” the lady began, and Fair faltered faintly: “I am very glad--for--for--I am sick. The flowers made me feel faint; they--they--are so heavy.” She was staggering, with weak, uncertain footsteps, past the lady; but she caught her arm, and said kindly: “Wait and have a little wine.” CHAPTER XV. FOOD AT LAST.