The Green Ribbons

The following day was Sunday and Hephzibah put on her best clothes and sat down at the dressing table to dress her hair. As she tied a length of grey ribbon around the knot of hair at the back of her head she thought of the new green ribbons her mother had gifted her. She liked to pick them up and hold them to her hair and think about how she might have worn them in Rome and wonder if maybe a day would come when she would at last have reason to wear them. She reached out to the mantelpiece where she had placed them when she had unpacked that first night, but there was nothing there. She hunted round the room but there was no sign of the ribbons. Annoyed, she finished pinning her hair in place. She frowned at her reflection in the mirror. Every inch the governess. Perhaps one of the maids had tidied the ribbons away – or maybe Ottilie had taken them to dress up one of her china dolls.