“Then you should not have been so cruel to him,” said his mother; and she looked closely at Lamorna, to see if she showed signs of repentance.
“Why are you looking at me?” cried Lamorna. “Have I done my hair badly, or do I look amiss?” for she felt frightened as she could not see herself, lest her looks might have changed.
“You are a vain, heartless girl, Lamorna,” cried the woman, angrily. “I only looked at you to see if you were sorry that Erick had gone, and you are thinking all the time of your own looks, forsooth!” and she slammed the door in her face.
Lamorna turned back and went home. She tried to laugh when she told her father that Erick had gone to the war; but in reality she felt far more inclined to cry.
“I should not have minded telling Erick,” she thought, “but I should not dare to say anything to anyone else, lest they should think me mad.”
As the time passed away, and she had new dresses and could not see herself in them, she cried afresh.
“I don’t know what I shall do,” she sobbed, as she stood in front of a looking-glass in a fine new dress that she had never worn before, and yet could not see herself in it. “I believe I shall go out of my mind. And I daresay I am growing frightfully ugly without knowing it.” And she began to fret, and lie awake at night, and grow quite pale and thin.
“What is the matter with you. Lamorna?” said one of the neighbours. “You’re growing quite thin. You mustn’t get to look like that at your age, or you’ll lose all your good looks;” and Lamorna shivered with fear as she listened. And again, another woman said to her, “Lamorna, you’ve not done your hair well today. You must not grow untidy, or you’ll never look pretty;” and Lamorna, who knew that her hair was not so well done because she could not see it, ran away to hide her tears.
So a year passed, and nothing had been heard of Erick.
Lamorna had plenty of other lovers, but as she grew cross and bad-tempered, and her enticing looks began to leave her, her lovers left her too.
Every year there was a great fair held in the village, to which Lamorna had always gone, dressed in her best, and looking her prettiest; so when the time came round for the fair again, she determined to go, and to dress herself as smartly as possible, that no one might say she was less pretty than formerly. So she chose the prettiest dress she could find, and trimmed it with cherry-coloured ribbons, and then she took out her hat, and looked at it, and thought it was too plain.
“If I could get a new feather for it,” she said, “or some flowers, it would be much better. I’ll go out and see what I can find.”
She went to the village and looked at all the shop windows, and saw nothing that would suit her; so then she turned into the fields, thinking she would pick some flowers to make a wreath instead.
She looked in all the banks and hedges, but all the flowers she saw she thought too plain, and she threw them away as soon as she had gathered them.
“If I can’t find anything prettier than these,” she said, “I will not go to the fair at all,” and she began to be cross.
At last she came to a large old tree, and on one of its lowest boughs was seated the loveliest bird she had ever seen in her life. Its body was bright blue, but its wings were striped gold and green, and it shone as if it had been set with jewels.
“Oh, what a beauty!” thought Lamorna; “if I could but get some of its feathers for my hat, how happy I should be!” and she looked at the bird longingly. Presently she took up a large stone, and going softly under the tree, threw it up at the bird, but the stone fell on the other side and missed the bird, who sat quite still and did not stir.
“You silly creature!” said Lamorna, “if you sit so still, I shall easily be able to catch you.” So she ran to the back of the tree and climbed up it on to the lowest bough, and bending across tried to seize the bird. But the bird fluttered in her grasp, and she lost her balance and fell from the bough on her face. Underneath the tree was a little heap of sharp stones, on to which Lamorna fell, and her face was cut right across, and the blood gushed out. At first she lost her senses with the fall, but she soon recovered herself and started up and ran home crying. Of course she could not see the cut, but she felt the blood flowing down, and she washed and bandaged it as best she could. But when her father came in he stared at her in surprise.
“Why, girl,” he cried, “what have you done to yourself?”
“I have fallen down and cut my face,” said Lamorna shortly.
“Cut your face—that you have, and a bad cut too. But what made you put on the plaster like that—half on and half off? I’ll go out and ask some of the women to come in and do it for you, if you can’t manage it better than that for yourself.”
So Lamorna’s face was bandaged, and of course she could not go to the fair. All thought it a very bad cut, and that it would most likely leave a scar for life. She had to lie in bed for many days, and she felt very sick and ill. But while she was thus lying alone she thought of a great many things which had never entered her head before; and most of all of Erick. She
