of copying her. I should begin to grow old before my time."

When she reached her bedroom, she put down her letter unopened on the
toilet-table and once more stared searchingly at her own reflection in
the mirror. Was there any least trace of a physical likeness, she asked
herself; and began in imagination to follow the possible stages of the
change that time would inevitably work upon her. She shrugged her
shoulders. If there were indeed any sort of facial resemblance between
herself and her aunt, no one would ever see it except in Miss Deane,
and she was obsessed with a senile vanity. Yet was it, after all,
Rachel began to wonder, an unnatural obsession? Might she not in time
suffer from it herself? The change would be so slow, so infinitely
gradual; and always one would be cherishing the old, loved image of
youth and beauty, falling in love with it, like a deluded Hyacinth, and
coming to be deceived by the fantasy of an unchanging appearance of
youth. Looking always for the desired thing, she would suffer from the
hallucination that the thing existed in fact, and imagine that the only
artifice needed to perfect the illusion was a touch of paint and
powder. No doubt her aunt--perhaps searching her own image in the
mirror at this moment--saw not herself but a picture of her niece. She
was hypnotised by the suggestion of a pose and the desire of her own
mind. In time, Rachel herself might also become the victim of a similar
illusion!

Oh! it was horrible! With a shudder, she picked up her letter and
turned away from the looking-glass. She would forget that ghastly
warning in the thought of the joys proper to her youth. She would think
of Adrian and of her next meeting with him. She opened her letter to
find that he had, rather timorously, suggested that she should meet him
the next afternoon--at the Marble Arch at three o'clock, if he heard