Page:Shirley (1849 Volume 1).djvu/291

 Thus, in the utter sickness of longing and disappointment, she went home.

The next morning at breakfast, where she appeared, white-cheeked and miserable-looking as one who had seen a ghost, she inquired of Mr. Helstone,—

"Have you any objection, uncle, to my inquiring for a situation in a family?"

Her uncle, ignorant as the table supporting his coffee-cup of all his niece had undergone and was undergoing, scarcely believed his ears.

"What whim now?" he asked. "Are you bewitched? What can you mean?"

"I am not well, and need a change," she said.

He examined her. He discovered she had experienced a change, at any rate. Without his being aware of it, the rose had dwindled and faded to a mere snowdrop: bloom had vanished, flesh wasted; she sat before him drooping, colourless, and thin. But for the soft expression of her brown eyes, the delicate lines of her features, and the flowing abundance of her hair, she would no longer have possessed a claim to the epithet—pretty.

"What on earth is the matter with you?"