“That’s just what I asked you to do,” said Katherine a trifle impatiently.
“Isn’t it because you’re sort of–careless about your clothes?” began Gladys. “You’re always coming apart somewhere. There’s generally a string hanging out, or the end of a belt or the loop of a collar. 140 You’re just as likely to have your hat on hind side before as not, and often you’ve had on the skirt of one suit and the jacket of another.”
She paused uncertainly and looked anxiously into Katherine’s face to see how she was taking it.
“Go on,” said Katherine briefly.
“Your shoes are often run down at the heels,” went on Gladys. “I know it’s an awful bother to keep them straight; mine are always running over crooked. I have to have the left one fixed every three weeks. But it’s something that just has to be done if you want to keep looking neat.
“And then your hair, Katherine dear. It’s so wispy; it’s always hanging in your face. Doesn’t it hurt your eyes to look through it?”
Katherine put back the offending lock with an impatient gesture, but in less than a minute it was all down again. “There!” she said. “You see how it is! It just won’t stay up!”
“Maybe it would if you arranged it a little differently,” said Gladys. “Couldn’t you curl it?”
Katherine snorted. “I curl my hair!” she scoffed. “My child, life is too short to waste it on anything like that.”
“I don’t know,” said Gladys slowly. “I don’t think anything is a waste of time that helps to make a person attractive. You know we Camp Fire Girls are supposed to ‘seek beauty.’ That means personal attractiveness as much as anything else.”