"I wish I knew how you keep those cunning little curls, Estelle," sighed Beryl longingly. "My hair is so horribly straight."
"It's quite easy," explained Estelle; "you can do it with any ordinary flat-iron, though of course an electric-iron is the best. If you heat the iron over the gas or fire (if any) it gets sooty, and if you've golden hair, as I have this year—well. Only," she went on warningly, "always see that you lay your curl flat on the table before you iron it."
"I wish I could get my hands as white as yours, Beryl," I said.
"You can't expect to, darling; working at Whitehall as you do your fingers are bound to get stained with nicotine. Warm water and soap is all I use. First I immerse my hands in tepid water, then I rub the soap (you can get it at any chemist's or oil-shop) into the pores—you 'd be surprised how it lathers if you do it the right way—and then I rinse the soap off again. I learnt that trick from watching our washer-woman—she had such lovely hands."
"Why do you never use powder now, Estelle?" asked Rosalie. "Before the War one could never come near you without leaving footprints."
"My reasons were partly patriotic, conserving the food supply, you know, and partly owing to the mulatto-like tint the war-flour gave me. One doesn't want to go about looking half-baked, does one?"
"No," we murmured, making a pretty concerted number of it.
"But wrinkles, darling Estelle," I pleaded—"do tell us what you do for your wrinkles."
"Wrinkles," murmured Estelle, with a pretty puckering of her brow—"I haven't any left; I've given them all to you."
[EDITORIAL NOTE.—This series will not be continued in our next issue.]