“But, I feel—I feel so—so cold.”
“Where, in your face? Nonsense. Now try on this hat.”
Goody adjusted the hat. It was much too small to cover all of Garde’s glorious hair.
“This will have to come off,” said the old woman.
“Oh!” was all Garde could reply.
It did seem a pity, but the business in hand was altogether grim. The scissors snipped briskly. The hat presently covered a quaint, pretty head with close-cropped locks. Garde caught the gleam in Goody’s eyes, for Goody could not but admire her for a most handsome and irresistible boy, and again the blushes leaped into her cheeks, and those tell-tale knees began to try to hide one another.
Goody shook her head. “Any one would still know you for Garde Merrill,” she confessed, “whether they had ever known you before or not.”
“Then what shall I do? I might as well go back to my own clothes,” said the girl eagerly.
“You remain where you are,” instructed her mentor. “If you are going to run away successfully, you must muster up your courage. But perhaps you prefer to go back to——”
“No! I’ll——do anything,” interrupted Garde. A sudden horror of the thought of going back, or of being caught and taken back, to Randolph and all the rest of it, put good steel into her shoulders and some also into her legs. “Please make haste and let me be starting,” she added. “They may be coming at any moment!”