So Regina’s hair was washed and dried, and then came the great question of what style of hair-dressing she should adopt.
“I would like you not to look in the glass,” said Madame Florence, as the little lady had asked Regina to call her. “I should like you to see the finished picture of yourself without your seeing the process. So often what comes to one as a surprise is so much better than what comes gradually.”
She opened a large box on a table at her right hand, and chose from it a light frame of the exact color of Regina’s hair. This she put on Regina’s head, then she deftly manipulated the abundant tresses, gathered them loosely over the frame into a knot at the top of the head, fixing it here and there with combs, and then slightly waved the looser portions of hair.
“In most instances,” she said when she had reached this point, “I should recommend the wearing of a net, but your hair is so much of a length, and so unlikely to become untidy, that I should not recommend you to trouble to do more than I have done. Now look at yourself.”
It was such a glorified vision of Regina that met that lady’s gaze when she looked at herself that she positively jumped out of her seat.
“It is really me?” she cried.
“Yes, it is really you,” said Madame Florence.
“But how shall I be able to do it myself, I—I do not keep a maid.”
“Well, wear it to-day, see how you like it, see how your people appreciate it, do it as well as you can and come back again to me to-morrow. I will do it for you until your hair has got into condition and takes these lines naturally. How do you like it?”