"O Esther, your hair, your hair! Where has it gone?"
"Here it is," said Mr. Trelawny, producing a packet wrapped in soft paper, and laying it upon Mrs. St. Aiden's knee. "I daresay some enterprising hairdresser would give a pretty penny for it. Now, Miss Prissy, you run off with your little friend here. I want to talk a little to these good ladies."
Prissy rose, and Esther was glad to escape with her into the garden. It was delightful to have such a cool, comfortable head; but all the talk about herself made her feel hot and shy.
"O Esther!" cried Prissy, "you do look so funny. But I've often heard mother say that it is bad for you having such a great head of hair. What was it made Mr. Trelawny cut it off? Don't you think it was taking a great liberty without your mother's leave?"
"I don't know," answered Esther slowly. "I don't think mama would ever have let him."
The boys came running up now, and the four children were soon well hidden from view in the clipped yew arbor, which was Esther's especial haunt.
"I thought he cut it off to use it in his experiments," said Pickle. "I've read of magicians who took people's hair, and then they used to burn bits of it and make them come to them in their sleep. I expect that's what he's done it for. I expect that you'll often be walking up to the cave in your sleep now."
Esther began shaking at once, but Prissy said, with her grown-up air of reproof,—
"You are talking great nonsense, Philip." (Prissy very often called the boys Philip and Percy, to their own unspeakable disgust.) "There are no magicians now; and besides, it was all nonsense when there were any. And Mr. Trelawny gave Esther's hair back to Mrs. St. Aiden just now. I saw him."
But Pickle wasn't going to be shut up like that.