The beds were made. Her share of the dusting was done. The boys and Mr. Wycherly would be out until luncheon, and her aunt was busy in the kitchen where she strongly objected to have Jane-Anne, as she described it, "clutterin’ round." There was a large cask of beer in the cellar, and the key was in the door. The cellar was to the front of the house under the dining-room, and was consequently some distance from the kitchen. Jane-Anne rushed upstairs, seized her large bedroom jug, emptied it, and descended with it to the cellar. The cask was near the steps, and, with the door at the top left open, she could see quite well. She turned the tap and the good brown ale foamed gaily into the jug. Just as, by its weight, she judged it to be about half full, she heard a sound as though her aunt were coming. She seized her jug and rushed up the steps, forgetting to shut the door at the top, and hid in the parlour. No, she was wrong, Mrs. Dew was still busy in the kitchen. As quietly as she could, she crept back to her room, and, once there, bolted the door. Her heart was thumping in her ears, and she panted with excitement. She had a good large basin in her room and a foot-bath. She chose the foot-bath and what was in the jug filled it half full of the strong brown ale of Oxford. What a smell it had! Jane-Anne knelt down, unplaited her hair and shook it forward over her face. She held her nose tightly with one hand and with the other plunged her heavy mane into the foaming beer. The smell was overpowering. She was obliged to let go of her nose for she was choking, and as she did so the beer, forced higher in the foot-bath by the mass of hair, splashed her in the face. Gasping and choking, she persevered; she laved her head with beer, she rubbed it in with both hands, rejoicing that it made a beautiful lather, and she spat out vigorously what had been forced into her open mouth while she held her nose. It was a horrible experience, but the blood of the Spartans ran in Jane-Anne’s veins, and she endured till every hair and a large proportion of her upper garments was thoroughly saturated with beer. At last she felt the treatment had had full justice, and she drew out what appeared to be yards of sticky, sodden pulp that had once been human hair. "Of course it won’t curl till it’s dry," she said to herself, and proceeded to sprinkle more beer about her bedroom in her efforts to free her hair from that nourishing beverage. But it wouldn’t dry. Her bedroom already smelt like ten public-houses rolled into one, and brown stains were everywhere. Not a ripple nor a rib appeared on her matted and bedraggled head. Her towels were already saturated with beer, and only seemed to make matters worse. Her eyes smarted and her nose was scarlet. The strong smell made her feel quite faint. She began to cry bitterly; her hair was stickier than ever and showed no signs of even waving.