to bed, and then burst out laughing at her own folly, and was as silly as you {38}can conceive it possible to be—perhaps more silly than after nineteen any one could conceive.
{36}
{37}
{38}
Next day, after Lizzie had put the room in order, and Mrs Mitford had paid her after-breakfast visit, and gone off to the village to see some of her poor people, it occurred to Kate to try her own strength. Her father was coming to dinner at the Rectory that day, and it had been arranged that she was to be up in the evening to see him. But when all was quiet in the house, Mrs Mitford out, the doctor not expected, and Parsons at hand, who was not likely to thwart her mistress, Kate formed a different plan for herself. She had her dresses taken out, just to look at them. After being in a dressing-gown for a week, the charms of a real dress, something that fits, is wonderful. Kate gave a contemptuous glance at her white wrapper, as she gazed at all those pretty garments, and then she glanced at herself in the glass opposite, with her hair all loosely bundled up under her net. What a guy she looked, lying there so long, as if she had had a fever! “A good thing they did not bethin{39}k themselves of cutting off my hair,” she said, under her breath; and could not but ask herself with horror whether all the eau-de-Cologne that had been lavished on her head, and all the showers of water, would affect her hair disadvantageously. She might as well take it out of the net at least, and let Parsons dress it. When this was done, Kate felt her courage rise. She sprang up from her sofa, frightening the maid. “I am going to dress—I must dress—I can’t bear this thing five minutes longer!” she cried.
{39}
“Oh, miss! you’ll catch your death,” cried Parsons, not indeed knowing why, but delivering the first missile of offence that came to her hand. But Parsons was far from being a person of spirit, or able to cope with her young mistress. She stood helplessly by, protesting, but making no effort to resist, except the passive one of giving no assistance. Kate flew at her dress with a sense of novelty which gave it an additional charm. She buttoned herself into it with a certain delight. “Oh, how nice it is to feel one has something on!” she cried, tossing her wrapper to the other side of the r{40}oom; and she fastened her belt, and tied her ribbons, and did everything for herself with a sweep of enthusiasm. The reader has only seen her as an invalid, and Kate was very well worth looking at. She was a
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