Then she took the stairway at a bound, and ran to her room. In a very short time she emerged, clad in a clean blouse and breeches’ her climbing boots, her black hair freshly brushed and braided.
“I ought to have something,” said Linda, “to shade my eyes. The glare’s hard on them facing the sun.”
Going down the hall she came to the storeroom, opened a drawer, and picked out a fine black felt Alpine hat that had belonged to her father. She carried it back to her room and, standing at the glass, tried it on, pulling it down on one side, turning it up at the other, and striking a deep cleft across the crown. She looked at herself intently for a minute, and then she reached up and deliberately loosened the hair at her temples.
“Not half bad, all things considered, Linda,” she said. “But, oh, how you do need a tich of colour.”
She ran down the hall and opened the door to Eileen’s room, and going to her chiffonier, pulled out a drawer containing an array of gloves, veils, and ribbons. At the bottom of the ribbon stack, her eye caught the gleam of colour for which she was searching, and she deftly slipped out a narrow scarf of Roman stripes with a deep black fringe at the end. Sitting down, she fitted the hat over her knee, picked up the dressing-table scissors, and ripped off the band. In its place she fitted the ribbon, pinning it securely and knotting the ends so that the fringe reached her shoulder. Then she tried the hat again. The result was blissfully satisfactory. The flash of orange, the blaze of red, the gleam of green, were what she needed.
“Thank you very much, sister mine,” she said, “I know you would be perfectly delighted to loan me this.”
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CHAPTER IX
One Hundred Per Cent Plus
Then she went downstairs and walked into the kitchen, prepared for what she would see, by what she heard as she approached.