"Perhaps so; of course, knowing your age, I can't judge so well how it would strike a stranger."
"I see you have gone back to the old childish way of arranging your hair. What's that for?" asked Enna, turning to Elsie; "I should think it was about time you were beginning to be a little womanly in something."
"Yes, but not in dress or the arrangement of my hair. So papa says, and of course I know he is right."
"He would not let you have it up in a comb?"
"No," Elsie answered with a quiet smile.
"Why do you smile? Did he say anything funny when you showed yourself that day?"
"Oh, Elsie, have you tried putting up your hair?" asked Carrie; while Lucy exclaimed, "Try it again to-night, Elsie, I should like to see how you would look."
"Yes," said Elsie, answering Carrie's query first. "Enna persuaded me one day to have mammy do it up in young-lady fashion. I liked it right well for a change, and that was just what mamma said when I went into the drawing-room and showed myself to her. But when papa came in, he looked at me with a comical sort of surprise in his face, and said. 'Come here; what have you been doing to yourself?' I went to him and he pulled out my comb, and ordered me off to mammy to have my hair arranged again in the usual way, saying, 'I'm not going to have you aping the woman already; don't alter the style of wearing your hair again, till I give you permission.'
"And you walked off as meek as Moses, and did his bidding," said Enna sarcastically. "No man shall ever rule me so. If papa should undertake to give me such an order, I'd just inform him that my hair was my own, and I should arrange it as suited my own fancy."
"I think you are making yourself out worse than you really are, Enna," said Elsie gravely. "I am sure you could never say anything so extremely impertinent as that to grandpa."