“I will not submit to it. I will not give up my hopes. I will not be a servant,” she kept saying over and over to herself, while she sat there and waited for Miss Baker to attend to her needs, and felt rather than saw Josephine’s impertinent inspection of her personal appearance.

“You’ve got a wonderful head of hair,” that young lady at length observed, as she approached her after being released from the seamstress’ hands. “I think I never saw such a heavy braid before; and I believe it will just match Nellie Colton’s; she is papa’s niece. I’ll tell mamma to have a barber come and cut it off. Of course you can’t afford the time now to take care of it, and it would make such a splendid band for Nell.”

Star regarded her in blank astonishment. The effrontery of this young lady was simply overpowering.

“Indeed!” she at last quietly replied. “If Miss Colton is in need of a band of hair, she will doubtless find it at almost any hair store in the city. I intend to keep mine.”

Miss Richards colored angrily, for Star’s great blue eyes met hers fearlessly, and her tone betrayed an independence which did not promise well for any tyranny which she might expect to exercise over her in the future.

“You will do exactly as mamma desires, miss,” she cried and then turned and left the room.

53Star’s face was also very red, and she swallowed an angry sob as she turned to Miss Baker.

53

“I am ready to sew,” was all that she could say.

She longed to get some work into her hands, hoping thus to distract her thoughts from self and her bitter disappointment.

The seamstress cut off the breadths of a skirt and gave them to her, pitying the pretty, yet despised, stranger from the bottom of her heart.

“May I use the machine?” the young girl asked, glancing at that labor-saving instrument.

“Do you know how?”

“Yes’m.”

“Very well. This is a Florence, and I will show you how to thread it.”

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