I do the best that I can with the grass, and open my book, and the voice from the hammock bids me to tell a story.
"What, with no better audience than that?"
It appears that this is the charm. She has never had a story all to herself before.]
There once was a girl who had very long and very beautiful hair.
(As long as yours? Much longer and much more beautiful. And if you interrupt me again, I will stop this story, empty you out of the hammock, tie you to a tree, and teach you as much as I can remember of the French gender rules. Very well, then.)
As I was saying—there once was a girl who had very long and very beautiful hair, and she knew it. Her sisters, who were as plain-spoken as sisters generally are, were in the habit of saying that she was a perfect peacock. Her hair was very much the colour of a chestnut, and she took the greatest possible care of it. It was a rule of life with her, when she had nothing else to do, to brush her hair. Frequently also she brushed it when she had other things to do. She never would have it cut. She even refused a lock of it to her own mother. When she went out for walks with her sisters she listened attentively as people passed her, because sometimes they said things about her hair which she liked very much. Then she would try not to look pleased, and when a girl who is really pleased tries to look as if she did not care, she looks perfectly horrid. Her sisters remarked upon it.
Her father, who was a good and wise man, explained to her how wicked vanity was, especially vanity about one's hair. He showed her that personal attractions, especially if connected in any way with the hair, were worthless as compared with the intellectual and moral attributes. On the other hand, her mother took her to a photographer's and had her taken in fourteen different positions, and they all made such beautiful pictures that the photographer nearly committed suicide because he was not allowed to exhibit them in his shop window.
She reached the age at which every good Christian girl wishes to have long dresses and do her hair up into a lump, but this girl (whose name was Elsa, of course) would not have her hair done up, and stamped with her foot and was rude to the governess. In the end, of course, Elsa had to submit, for it is very wicked for girls of a certain age to wear their hair down. But she became extremely ingenious. She had ways of doing that hair so that it would not stop up, but tumbled down unexpectedly and caused great admiration. She would then pretend to be confused and embarrassed. Now, when a girl who is not in the least confused and embarrassed tries to look so, she looks simply silly. Her sisters told her so. Every single girl friend she had, and many who were only acquaintances, had seen that hair in its native glory. Some of these raved about it to Elsa's sisters, and were surprised that the sisters did not share their enthusiasm.
"She has such a lot of it," the friends would say.
"She thinks such a lot of it," the sisters would answer.