"I do hope I'm not going to be ill," she said. "I feel so odd, just as
if I hadn't had anything to eat for days,--and yet I'm not a bit
hungry either. I daresay I shan't wake up in time to get there by
six."

She was awake before five.

She woke with a flutter of the heart. What was it? Had anything
happened? Was anyone ill? Then she recognized that she was not
unhappy. And she felt more than ever as though it were days since she
had had anything to eat.

"Oh, dear," said Betty, jumping out of bed. "I'm going out, to meet
Him, and have a drawing-lesson!"

She dressed quickly. It was too soon to start. Not for anything must
she be first at the rendezvous, even though it were only for a
drawing-lesson. That "only" pulled her up sharply.

When she was dressed she dug out the diary and wrote:

"This is terrible. Is it possible that I have fallen in love with
him? I don't know. 'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?'
It is a most frightful tragedy to happen to one, and at my age too.
What a long life of loneliness stretches in front of me! For of
course he could never care for me. And if this _is_ love--well, it
will be once and forever with me, I know.

"That's my nature, I'm afraid. But I'm not,--I can't be. But I never