"Hope I don't lose it off!" returned Charlie fervently, as he rendered himself temporarily cross-eyed, in his efforts to catch a glimpse of the silky thatch on his upper lip. "But I wish you'd take my hair in hand, Allie; it's so used to a bang, that it just won't stay parted."
"Let me try." And Allie took the comb, and devoted herself to coaxing her cousin's refractory locks to lie in the desired position. "It wants to be just in the middle, for you're going to be the dearest little dudelet you ever saw. Now take off your glasses."
"Oh, I must have those," remonstrated Charlie. "I'm blind as a bat without them, and I shall be sure to run into something, and tip it over."
"No, you won't," said Allie composedly. "If you wear them, people will be sure to know you."
"But, if I take them off, my scar will show," argued Charlie; "and that will give it all away. But, I say, I have some eye-glasses somewhere, that the oculist gave me, to start with. I don't ever wear them, 'cause they wouldn't stick to my nose. I lost them off into the soup, the first night at dinner, and I bought my spectacles early the next morning; but perhaps I can keep them on now."
"I should think you ought to; your nose is large enough," remarked Allie, with calm disrespect. "But get them; I can tell better when I see them."
There was an interval of silence, while Charlie rummaged in his bureau drawers. At length he unearthed the little case from a box containing an odd assortment of light hardware, broken knives, stray nails, an awl or two, and a collection of trout reels and flies.
"Here 'tis," he said. "I remember now; I used it to wind my best line on. How will they go?" And he turned to face his cousin, with a conscious laugh which promptly dislodged the glasses from his nose.
"That's better," said Allie approvingly; "they don't look a bit the same. I don't like them as well as I do the spectacles, for all the time; but they change you more. Now remember to be very easy and elegant, and don't act shy. Behave as if you thought you were very good to speak to them, and they'll like you all the better. And be sure you don't go too early."
"But what are you going to do now?" demanded Charlie, as she turned to the door. "You aren't going to be mean enough to leave me here all alone, till it's time to go?"