The hall door opened softly, and Floy staggered across the threshold, bearing the lamp unsteadily in her small hand.

What a change had come over the sparkling riante face!

She was pale to the lips—pale as a ghost, as the saying goes—and there was a strange expression in her blue eyes, as if they had looked upon something uncanny.

With an unsteady step, as though she trembled in every limb, the lamp flaring dismally in her grasp, she dragged herself across the room to a long swinging mirror between the windows, and held the light up over her golden head, looking at herself carefully, as she whispered:

“I wonder if my hair has turned white?”

The words, coupled with her appalling shrieks of half an hour ago, proved two facts. First, that Floy had sustained a severe shock of some kind, since only sudden fright or grief is supposed to whiten the hair in a single hour; and secondly, that she was recovering from her alarm, as manifested by her anxiety over her personal appearance.

The long mirror gave her back faithfully the beautiful form with the graceful swelling curves of dawning womanhood, and the lovely face lighted by clear blue eyes, and crowned by waves of crinkly gold above the frank white brow.

[36]

[36]

No, her hair had not turned white, despite the untold horror that had shaken her soul to the center. Not even one silver thread shone among the gold.

Floy heaved a long, bursting sigh of intense relief, set down the lamp, and dropped wearily into a chair near the window.

The moon’s rays shone in her white face, so pale and horror-struck, and she saw that the storm was over and the sky clear again.

“Oh, how much longer must I stay here?—how long before the dawn?” she muttered, fearfully, gazing straight before her into the night, as if afraid to look back into the grewsome room with its dark, shadowy corners.

And this was Fly-away Floy, the fearless, with her nerves of steel, and her contemptuous disbelief in the supernatural—this pale, startled creature who had just looked into the mirror to see if the golden locks of youth had changed to the frosty ones of age.

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