Rossie’s mind was made up, and, after lunch was over, she started for Elm Park, where Miss Belknap lived. Bee was at home, and glad to see her little friend. She was very fond of Rossie, whose quaint, old-fashioned ways amused and rested her; and she took her at once to the pretty blue chamber, which Rossie admired so much, and which seemed so in keeping with its lovely mistress. All Bee’s tastes were of the most luxurious kind, and, as she had no lack of means, she gratified them to the full. The fever, which had deprived her of her hair, had hurt her pride sorely; for the wig which she was wearing until her own hair grew again was not a success, and she chafed against it, and hated herself every time she looked in the glass; and when Rosamond, who could not wait lest her courage should fail her, said, “Miss Beatrice, are you in earnest about my hair? Will you buy it now?” she answered, “Buy it? Yes, in a moment.” “And give me seventy-five dollars?” Rossie faltered, ashamed of herself for asking this enormous sum. But it did not at all appall Miss Belknap. Seventy-five dollars was nothing if she wished for anything, and she did want Rossie’s hair. It was just the color and texture of her own, and she could have such a natural looking wig made of it. “Yes, give you seventy-five dollars willingly;” she said. “But it seems very mean and selfish in me to take it,” she continued; and Rossie, fearful lest the bargain should fall through, answered eagerly: “Oh, no, it don’t. I want the money very much indeed. I am anxious to sell it, and, if you do not buy it, I shall go to some one else. But you must not ask me why,—I can’t tell that; only, it is not for myself,—it’s for a friend; I don’t think the hair worth seventy-five dollars, but that is what I must have, and so I asked it. Maybe if you can give me fifty, and loan me twenty-five, I can pay it when my allowance is due.” “You conscientious little chit,” Bee said, laughingly, “you have not yet learned the world’s creed,—take all you can get. I am willing to give you seventy-five dollars, and, even at that price, think it cheap. But you are a little girl, and will not look badly with short hair.” With her natural shrewdness and her knowledge of some of Everard’s shortcomings, Bee guessed that it was for him the sacrifice was made, and, when the barber’s scissors gleamed among the shining tresses, she saw that they did not cut too close and make the girl a fright. But the loss of her hair changed Rossie very much, and when she went back to the Forrest House she shrank from the eyes of the servants, and stole up to her own room, where she could inspect herself freely, and see just how she looked. “Oh, how ugly I am, and how big my eyes are!”, she said, and two hot tears rolled down her cheeks; but she resolutely dashed them away, and thought, “His mother would be so glad if she knew I was doing it for him.”