Agnetta burst into a loud laugh.
“Well, you are a ninny, Lilac White. Are you goin’ to hide from everyone now you’ve got a fringe? You as are goin’ to have your picture took. An’ after all,” she added, as a face and shoulders appeared at the top of the ladder. “It’s only Peter.”
Peter’s rough head and blunt, uncouth features were framed by the square opening in the floor of the loft. There they remained motionless, for the sight of Agnetta and Lilac where he had been prepared to find only hay and straw brought him to a standstill. His face and the tips of his large ears got very red as he saw Lilac’s confusion, and he went a step lower down the ladder, but his eyes were still above the level of the floor.
“Well,” said Agnetta, still giggling, “we’ll hear what Peter thinks of it. Don’t she look a deal better with her hair cut so, Peter?”
Peter’s grey-green eyes, not unkindly in expression, fixed themselves on his cousin’s face. In her turn Lilac gazed back at them, half-frightened, yet beseeching mutely for a favourable opinion; it was like looking into a second mirror. She waited anxiously for his answer. It came at last, slowly, from Peter’s invisible mouth.
“No,” he said, “I liked it best as it wur afore.” As he spoke the head disappeared, and they heard him go clumping down the ladder again. The words fell heavily on Lilac’s ears. “Best as it wur afore.” Perhaps everyone would think so too. She looked dismally first at the locks of hair on the ground and then at Agnetta’s unconcerned face.
“Well, you’ve no call to mind what he says anyhow,” said the latter cheerfully. “He don’t know what’s what.”
“I most wish,” said Lilac, as she turned to leave the loft, “that I hadn’t done it.”
As she spoke, the distant sound of the church clock was heard. There was only just time to get to the foot of the hill, and she said a hurried good-bye to Agnetta, tying on her bonnet as she ran across the fields. She generally hated the sun-bonnet, but to-day for the first time she found a comfort in its deep brim, which sheltered this new Lilac White a little from the world. She almost hoped that the artist would change his mind and let her keep it on, instead of holding it in her hand.