"It's a little thing, of course. But I was thinkin'--Sidney, promise your Aunt Achsy you won't go off and do anything _else_ high-handed like without tellin' me. I don't want to be worryin' or suspicionin' what you're up to or havin' your sisters blame me for something that ain't just right to their thinkin'. Mebbe we don't do things same as you do but we know what's right and what's wrong same as anyone." Which was a long and stern speech for Aunt Achsa. She gave a frightened gasp at the end and turned the poor pie right side up. A dark flush had swept Sidney's face. There was no such thing as freedom _any_where--there must always be someone in authority somewhere to warn and rebuke, even this absurd little old woman, who seemed so remotely related. She wished she could think of something very withering and at the same time dignified to retort. "I think I am perfectly capable of knowing what is right and what is wrong and my sisters have _perfect_ confidence in me," she said slowly and with deep inward satisfaction. Then she added scornfully: "Of course it _is_ very different here and if I don't seem to get used to it you can't blame me!" With which she stalked through the parlor to her room and slammed the door. Aunt Achsa pattered after her. "Child! Child!" she called through the door. "Here's a letter for you. I was that taken back when I saw you I forgot to give it you." She slipped the letter through the inch of opening that Sidney, now tearful, vouchsafed her. The letter was from Trude. To poor Sidney this was the crowning humiliation; it was exactly as though Trude could look out from the pages and see the mutilated locks. Trude had always loved her hair and had often brushed it for her for the simple delight of fingering its wavy strands. More than once Trude had said: "You're lucky to have this hair, kid. Look at mine." Now she would gasp in horror as Aunt Achsa had done. "You should not have done it, Sidney--at least without consulting one of us." It was not the deed itself even Trude would censure--it was her independence. Oh, how terribly difficult it was to be like Mart! Trude had written to her almost daily, sketchy letters full of the news of what she was doing at the Whites. Sidney could not know that Trude purposely made them lively and wrote them often because she believed Sidney was homesick. In this letter her concern had reached the height of sacrifice.