Fosset, the maid, found her there at
a quarter past ten o'clock--the ceremony was to take place at eleven--and
gave a cry of horror at seeing the toilet uncommenced.
"Good gracious me, miss! what have you been thinking of? Your hair not
begun nor nothing! I've been almost torn to bits with one and another--Miss
Fermor's maid bothering for long hair-pins and narrow black ribbon; and
Jane Roberts--Lady Emily Challoner's maid--who really never has anything
handy, wanting half the things out of my work-box--or I should have been
with you ever so long ago. My Lady would be in a fine way if you were
late."
"I think my hair will do very well as it is, Fosset," Clarissa said
listlessly.
"Lor, no, miss; not in that dowdy style. It don't half show it off."
Clarissa seated herself before the dressing-table with an air of
resignation rather than interest, and the expeditious Fosset began her
work. It was done very speedily--that wealth of hair was so easy to dress;
there was no artful manipulation of long hair-pins and black ribbon needed
to unite borrowed tresses with real ones. The dress was put on, and
Clarissa was invited to look at herself in the cheval-glass.
"I do wish you had a bit more colour in your cheeks to-day, miss," Fosset
said, with rather a vexed air. "Not that I'd recommend you any of their
vinegar rouges, or ineffaceable blooms, or anything of that kind.
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