Betsy cried, but submitted; but the next victim, Sally French, howled and fought, and said, "Mammy would not have it done." But Dora sternly answered, "Then she should keep your head fit to be seen." And Mrs Thorpe held down her hands, with whispers of "Now, my dear, don't." And so it went on through nineteen girls, the boys sniggering all the time. Some cried and struggled, but latterly they felt it was their fate, and resisted no longer. Even Mary Cox, who had a curly head by nature, stood still to be clipped. Dora's hands were in a dreadful state, and her mind began to quail a little; but, having once started, she felt bound to go on and complete her work, and when she finally dismissed the school, there was a very undesirable heap of locks, brown, black, and carroty, interspersed with curl-papers, on the floor. The girls looked, to her mind, far better, and Mrs Thorpe, a little doubtful, gave her a basin of water to wash her hands. Home the two sisters went, their spirits rising as they laughed over their great achievement, and looked forward to amusing Mary with the account of the various behaviour of the victims. So they burst upon her, as she was planting bulbs in the garden, and Edmund helping her by measuring distances. "Oh, Mary, such fun!" cried Sophy. "We have been cutting all the children's hair." "What do you mean, Sophy?" "They had their heads worse than ever," said Dora, "so I took Mrs Thorpe's scissors and clipped them all round." "My dear Dora, I wish you had not been so hasty," Mary was gently saying; but Edmund was standing up, looking quite judicial. "Did you get their parents' permission?" he demanded. "No, of course I never should." "Then what right had you to meddle with the children?" "They were quite horrid. My hands! They'll never recover," said Dora, spreading out her fingers. "Very likely; but the children were not your slaves. You have a perfect right to forbid them to enter your school except on certain conditions, but not to tyrannise over them when there. You have done more harm than you will undo in a hurry." "I am afraid so," murmured Mary. Dora had a temper, and answered angrily, "Well, I'm sure I did it for the best." "I don't approve of opinionative young ladies," said Edmund, who was really from old habit quite like an elder brother. "Oh, Dora," sighed Mary, "don't!" Dora felt impelled to argue the matter out on the spot, but something in Mary's look withheld her. She went away, stepping high and feeling stately and proud; but when she had walked up and down her own room a few times, her better sense began to revive, and she saw that she had acted in anger and self-will quite as much as from a sense of propriety, and she threw herself on her bed and shed some bitter tears. They would have been still more bitter if she could have heard the exclamations of the mothers over their gates that evening. "Well, to be sure, that a young lady should have treated my poor like that!"