"And now come and help me with my hair, there's a good girl," cries Doris presently; "and do you think you could curl it at the back without burning me very terribly? You did horribly last time you undertook it, you know. My gracious! there's the second gong! Why, Lane will be up in a moment, and sha'n't I catch it if I am not nearly ready!"
"My dear Doris, if you would only sit down in this chair and not fuss so, we should get on much faster. Now give me the hair-pins as I want them, and keep quiet for a few minutes if you can."
HONOR ASSISTS DORIS TO DRESS FOR DINNER.
After having brushed the long silky hair through, Honor with a few skilful twirls and twists raises a becoming erection which (as Doris says) would do credit to a court hair-dresser.
"And now for the awful moment!" exclaims Honor, grasping the curling-tongs and thrusting them ferociously into the fire. "Now sit still, dear, if you can, and it shall not be my fault if you are burnt. There, I think I have really made you look lovely!" and she steps back gazing admiringly at her sister, who, with cheeks slightly flushed, and eyes almost preternaturally bright, looks in her soft white dressing-gown as pretty a picture as one would wish to see.
"Now tell me who is coming to-night, and all about it? Anyone from next door?"
"Why, there is only one of them old enough—Hugh; and he is only nineteen," says Doris with all the conscious superiority of a seventeen-and-a-half-year-old girl. "I believe he is coming, though; with his mother, of course. I wish mother would let me go in to dinner with him; it will be so dreadfully slow and dull if I have to sit through two whole mortal hours with some stupid old fogy who thinks of nothing but his dinner. Well, then, let me see if I can remember the rest. Oh, Honor, don't squeeze so; I can't bear that hook. Good gracious! how tight Madame Cecile has made the waist!"
"You'll have to bear it," says Honor, gasping, and remorselessly pulling and tugging at the refractory hooks and eyes. "I heard Madame Cecile mutter to herself the other day that she must make your waist smaller, so I suppose she means to systematically pull in an inch or so every time she makes you a new dress. Ah—there it is at last! How do you feel?"