Then Linda's attention followed M. Joseph to a table against a partition, where he secured a white cotton strip from a film of them soaking in a shallow tray, took up some white powder on the blade of a dessert knife and transferred it to the strip. This he wrapped and wrapped about the hair fastened on a spindle, tied it in turn, and dragged down one of the brown objects on wires, which, to Linda's great astonishment, fitted precisely over the cotton-bound hair. Again, fifteen times, M. Joseph did this, fastening each connection with the turn of a screw. When so much was accomplished her mother's hair, it seemed, had grown fast to the ceiling in a tangle of green ends. It was the most terrifying spectacle Linda had ever witnessed. Obscure thoughts of torture, of criminals executed by electricity, froze her in a set apprehension. The hair-dresser stepped over to the dials on the wall, and, with a sharp comprehensive glance at his apparatus, moved a handle as far as it would go. Nothing immediately happened, and Linda gave a relaxing sigh of relief. M. Joseph, however, became full of a painful attention. X He brought into view an unsuspected tube, with a cone of paper at its end, and bent over her mother, directing a stream of cold air against her head. “How do you feel?” he asked, with, Linda noticed, a startling loss of his first accent. Mrs. Condon so far felt well enough. Then, before Linda's startled gaze, every single one of the fifteen imprisoning tubes began to steam with an extraordinary vigor; not only did they steam, like teapots, but drops of water formed and slowly slid over her mother's face. If the process appeared weird at the beginning, now it was utterly fantastic. The little white vapor spurts played about Mrs. Condon's dripping countenance; they increased rather than diminished; actually it resembled a wrecked locomotive she had once seen. “How are you?” M. Joseph demanded nervously. “Is it hot anywhere?” With a sudden gesture she replied in a shaking voice, “Here.” Instantly he was holding the paper cone with its cold air against her scalp, and the heat was subdued. He glanced nervously at his watch, and Mrs. Condon managed to ask, “How long?” “Twenty minutes.”