Mr. Wycherly thought it was hard for Jane-Anne to have no money, and insisted on paying her five shillings a month for waiting upon him. Out of this, her aunt insisted that she must keep herself in stockings and gloves, which the child faithfully did.
But a girl at school enlightened her as to the uses of curling tongs, and Jane-Anne succumbed to temptation. She borrowed the goffering irons, heated them in the kitchen fire and burnt both her hair and her forehead rather badly.
Mr. Wycherly was infinitely more distressed about this than over the beer episode and took her gently to task for trying to improve upon what Nature had already made so harmonious and pleasing to the eye.
That was the way to get at Jane-Anne. As always, she was perfectly frank with him.
"Miss Willows says it is the duty of everyone to look as pretty as possible. 'Do your best and then think nothing more about it,' she says. But I seem obliged to think about it. You see, I know I'd be so much nicer if my hair was frizzy."
"But I don't think you would," Mr. Wycherly argued. "Your type is severe and classical; 'frizziness' would be quite dreadful and incongruous."
"But could anyone be beautiful with straight hair?"
"Why not?"
"Lord Byron had wavy hair, you have wavy hair, all the goddesses and people and Helen of Troy had wavy hair."
"I assure you," Mr. Wycherly declared, absently passing a long, slender hand over his thick white locks, "I never think about my hair at all, except when I have to go and get it cut."