Dora’s spirit was roused. “Very well,” she said, “Mrs Carbonel and I will not be disobeyed. Come here, Lizzie Barton. Your head is disgraceful. Lend me your scissors, Mrs Thorpe.”
Lizzie Barton began to cry, with her knuckles in her eyes, and would not stir; but Dora was resolute. One child made a rush for the door; but Dora desired Sophy to stand by the door and bar the passage, and called Mrs Thorpe to hold Lizzie Barton, who certainly was a spectacle, with half-a-dozen horns twisted out of old advertisement papers, but the rest of her hair flying in disgusting elf-locks. She was cowed, however, into standing quiet, till her appendages had been sheared off by the determined scissors. “There, I am sure you must be much more comfortable,” Dora assured her. “Get your mother to wash your head, and you will look so nice to-morrow. Now then, Betsy Hewlett.”
Betsy cried, but submitted; but the next victim, Sally French, howled and fought, and said, “Mammy would not have it done.” But Dora sternly answered, “Then she should keep your head fit to be seen.” And Mrs Thorpe held down her hands, with whispers of “Now, my dear, don’t.”
And so it went on through nineteen girls, the boys sniggering all the time. Some cried and struggled, but latterly they felt it was their fate, and resisted no longer. Even Mary Cox, who had a curly head by nature, stood still to be clipped. Dora’s hands were in a dreadful state, and her mind began to quail a little; but, having once started, she felt bound to go on and complete her work, and when she finally dismissed the school, there was a very undesirable heap of locks, brown, black, and carroty, interspersed with curl-papers, on the floor. The girls looked, to her mind, far better, and Mrs Thorpe, a little doubtful, gave her a basin of water to wash her hands.
Home the two sisters went, their spirits rising as they laughed over their great achievement, and looked forward to amusing Mary with the account of the various behaviour of the victims.
So they burst upon her, as she was planting bulbs in the garden, and Edmund helping her by measuring distances.
“Oh, Mary, such fun!” cried Sophy. “We have been cutting all the children’s hair.”
“What do you mean, Sophy?”
“They had their heads worse than ever,” said Dora, “so I took Mrs Thorpe’s scissors and clipped them all round.”
“My dear Dora, I wish you had not been so hasty,” Mary was gently saying; but Edmund was standing up, looking quite judicial.