“Nothing very bad,” said Shenac, laughing. “I want Christie to cut my hair, it is such a trouble; it takes a whole half-hour at one time or other of the day to keep it neat, and half-hours are precious.”
“I don’t like to do it, Shenac,” said Mrs More.
Shenac Dhu held up her hands in astonishment.
“Cut your hair off! Was the like ever heard of?—Nonsense, Christie! she never means it; and Hamish would never let her, besides. She’ll look no better than the rest of us without her hair,” continued she, taking the heavy braids out of Shenac’s hands and pushing her back on the pile of wool from which she had risen. “Christie, tell Shenac about John Cameron, as you told us last night.”
While Shenac listened to the account of a sad accident that had happened to a young man from another part of the country, Shenac Dhu let down the long, fair hair of her cousin, and, by the help of an old card that lay near, smoothed it till it lay in waves and ripples of gold far below her waist. Then, as Shenac Bhan still sat, growing pale and red by turns as she listened, she with great care rolled the shining mass into thick curls over neck and shoulders.
“Now stand up and show yourself,” said she, as she finished. “Is she not a picture? Christie, you should take her to the town with you and put her up in your husband’s shop-window. You would make her fortune and your own too.”
Shenac Bhan had this advantage over her cousin, and indeed over most people—that the sun that made them as brown as a berry, after the first few days’ exposure left her as fair and unfreckled as ever; and she really was a very pretty picture as she stood laughing and blushing before her cousins. The door opened, and Hamish came in.
“My mother sent me to bid you all come in to tea;” but he stopped as his eye fell on his sister.
“Tea!” cried Shenac Bhan. “I meant to do all that myself. Who would have thought that we had been here so long?” And she made a movement, as if to bind back her hair, that she might hasten away.
“Be quiet; stay till I bid you go,” said Shenac Dhu, hastily letting the curls fall again. “I wonder if all the puddles are dried up?—She ought to see herself. Cut them off! The vain creature! Never fear, Hamish.”