"Mind what you are about!" almost screamed little Mrs. Darling. "Didn't I _tell_ you to be careful? You have been pulling right along at the same hair! _Do_ consider that it is a human scalp, and not a _wig_ you are dealing with! Bonny, you are not a bad woman, but you will wear me out. Come, go on with it; it is getting late." Before the hair-dressing was accomplished Mrs. Darling rolled up her eyes--her blue eyes, round and angelic as they could sometimes be--at the reflection of Mrs. Bonnet's face in the mirror, and said, meekly: "Bonny, do you think that black moiré of mine would make over nicely for you? I am going to give it to you. No, don't thank me--it makes me look old. Now my slippers." While Bonnet was forcing the shoe on her fat little foot, Mrs. Darling's glance rested, perhaps by chance, on a photograph that leaned against the clock over the mantelpiece. It was that of a still young, well-looking man, whose face wore an unmistakable look of goodness, of the kind that made it what one expected to read under it in print--the Rev. Dorel Goodhue. There was another more conspicuous man-photograph in the room, on the dressing-table, in a massive frame that matched the toilet accessories. It stood there always, airing a photographic smile among the brushes and hand-glasses and pin-boxes. "I suppose," said Mrs. Darling, while she braced herself against Bonnet to help get the small shoe on--"I suppose I have a very bad temper!" and she laughed in such a sensible, natural, good-natured way any one must have felt that her exhibition of a moment before had been a sort of joke. "Tell the truth, Bonny: if every mistress had to have a certificate from her maid, you would give me a pretty bad one, wouldn't you? But I was abominably brought up. I used to slap my governesses. And I have had all sorts of illnesses; trouble, too. And I mostly don't mean anything by it. It is just nerves. Poor Bonny! I treat you shamefully, don't I?" "Oh, ma'am," said the lady's-maid, expanding in the light of this uncommon familiarity, "I would give you a character as would make it no difficulty in you getting a first-class situation right away; you may depend upon it, ma'am, I would. Don't this shoe seem a bit tight, ma'am?" "Not at all. It is a whole size larger than I wear. If you would just be so good as to hold the shoe-horn properly. There, that is it." She stood before the bed, on which were spread two long evening dresses. A little King Charles spaniel had made himself comfortable in the softest of one. His mistress pounced on him with a cry, first cuffed, then kissed and put him down. "Which shall I wear?" she asked. Bonnet drew back for a critical view, but dared not suggest unprompted. "The black and white is more becoming, but the violet crape is prettier. Oh, Bonny, decide quickly for me, like a tossed-up penny!" "Well, I think now I should say the violet, ma'am."