This was a more awful demand than Linda realized. Overwhelmed as she was with benefits her beneficiary demurred. "I can't only once in a few days." "But you're going to braid it every day now." "Oh, Miss Linda," was the aghast response. "I ain't got time. I couldn't! You don't know my hair. It acts as ugly as sin; jest as if it knew it was botherin' the life out of me. I have to git the children off to school--" "Not now." "Well, not now; but Miss Barry wants me the middle o' May, and I have to git over early--" "Yes, but it's July now." Blanche Aurora ceased protesting and winced. "Oh, did I pull? I'll be careful." "Pull it good if you want to. Good enough for it." "You must like your pretty hair," said Linda. "Pretty!" uttered Blanche Aurora. Of all the surprising things that had happened to her, that adjective was perhaps the most surprising. "Certainly it is, and it deserves good treatment." Blanche Aurora looked in the mirror at her friend's face. Could Linda, every tiny escaping hair of whose wavy locks curled in a curve of beauty,--could she call this red stubborn mane pretty? Then there was no more to be said. Blanche Aurora leaned back and studied the narrow trimming on her new clothes and rubbed her hard hands surreptitiously against the soft fabric of her white petticoat. Linda divided the modified waves of hair into two parts. "Now your hair will soon straighten out," she said. "Let it stay straight and smooth and well-brushed." "I'd like curly hair like yours," returned Blanche Aurora; "but I guess I'd pretty near die tryin' to comb it." Linda smiled. "You remind me of the tramp who said he didn't see how folks stood it to comb their hair every day. He did his only once a year, and then it most killed him. Now, you mustn't strangle your hair with that string any more," she added. "Strangle it! I think that's real funny," said Blanche Aurora judicially. She was radiant. There was only one small cloud on her horizon and that was the prospect of a daily wrestle with that hair. That hair! Why, angels couldn't go through it and keep their religion. "Now, see what I'm doing?" said Linda. "You'll be glad to do this when you see how nice it looks." With round and solemn gaze Blanche Aurora watched the braiding of first one half and then the other of her captured locks. "Be sure to begin as near the middle of your neck as you can." Linda swiftly doubled the two ends of the braids and fastened them. She looked at Mrs. Porter again as the fluffy braids hung down the slender back, and again Mrs. Porter nodded. "Miss Barry wants 'em tight," declared the child. "Miss Barry will be satisfied with this," rejoined Linda. Then she proceeded to cross the braids and wind them around the small head, tucking the ends out of sight with hair pins. This loosened the hair at the temples and the round eyes took in the fact that the arrangement was becoming even to freckles; but the breath-taking moment was to come.