"And I won't wait," cried Alexia loudly; "it's bad enough to be hooked to death with a horrid old ugly waist, without being scolded to pieces by your aunt."
"Oh, Alexia!" exclaimed Miss Rhys, "to call that beautiful waist an ugly thing!"
"And I'll pull every spear of hair out of my head, but I'll get the thing off. Ow!"—as she began to put her threat into execution.
"Do be still, Alexia," begged Polly, trying to push aside the nervous fingers.
"I won't be still," cried Alexia, casting up a pale eye full of wrath on the side next to Polly, and giving another twitch. "I guess if you'd been hooked up by a horrible old thing, and your aunt came in and scolded you terribly, you wouldn't wait. Ow! Oh, dear me!"
"Then," said Polly, standing quite still, "since you won't let me help you,
I'm going home, Alexia."
"Oh, don't," cried Alexia, and she dropped her hands to her side in a flash, the blue silk waist dangling to her head by its hook. "I'll let you help whatever you want to, Polly," she mumbled meekly.
So Polly set to work, Miss Rhys slipping out of the room. Although Alexia's nervous fingers were now not in the way, still, it wasn't easy to disentangle the hook from the thick, fluffy hair, wound in as it was.
"You've tangled it all up," said Polly, bending over it with flushed face, her fingers working busily, "and it's all in a snarl. Dear me! do I hurt?"
"No, never mind," said Alexia; "'tisn't any matter. Don't go home, Polly."
She held her fast by the gown.