"Rose," said Dolly, about half an hour after, "don't your hair trouble you when you are sewing?"
Rose looked up in astonishment at this demonstration of interest on the part of her tormentor.
"I don't know," she answered; "I never thought any thing about it."
("Now don't go to cutting it," whispered Daffy; "it looks so pretty.")
"I think it is spoiling her eyes," said Dolly; "bring me the scissors, Rose," and Dolly notched her locks in and out, in as jagged a manner as she knew how. As for the offending eyes which Miss Tufts had complimented, they were too useful to be extinguished, and as there was no helping the "bird in her mouth," or the "pretty way she had with her," Dolly resolved to keep Rose out of sight as much as possible, with her sewing in the attic, which she designated as Rose's bed-room; and, in pursuance of this determination, she was ordered up there.
Every body knows what a country attic is, with its hot, sloping, pitch-oozing roof, with its indescribable paraphernalia of dried mullen, elder-blow, thorough-wort, and tansy; with its refuse garden-tools, boxes, baskets, and chests of odds and ends; its spider-webs and its rat-holes.
A salamander could scarcely have endured Dolly's attic that hot August noon. Rose sat down on the rickety old bed, under the heated eaves, to ply her needle. There was an opening in the roof, but the breeze seemed to blow over it, not into it. Rose made little progress with her sewing, for her temples began to throb painfully, and her fingers almost refused their office. Now she rubs her forehead and eyes, for a mist seems to be gathering over them; now she pulls her needle slowly out again, and now dizziness overpowers her, and she falls forward upon the floor.
"Now just hear that noise," exclaimed Dolly; "hear that young one capering round that attic instead of doing her work. I'll soon settle that:" and taking her little riding-whip from behind the old-fashioned claw-footed clock in the corner, she mounted up stairs into the attic.
Phew! how hot it was—the perspiration started at every step, and this fact did not tend to the diminution of Dolly's rage.