She did not wait for Julia to reply, but turned and went quietly and quickly out of the room, leaving Julia speechless and astonished. "Now, what has happened to her?" said Julia. "Why should she, all at once, take to altering herself like that? Surely mother isn't going to be frivolous in her old age. I wonder what daddy will say. She's going to 'alter all that.' Well, of course--she's at liberty to please herself. I suppose I ought not to have jumped on her like that--poor mother!" She got up and ran up the broad and shallow stairs, knocked at her mother's door, and, without waiting for an answer, entered the room. "I say, mother," she said. Regina was standing before the glass, evidently in the act of taking the pins out of her hat. She turned round. "You want me?" she asked. Her tone was quite pleasant and sweet, but there was an indefinable sense of woundedness about it which touched Julia to the very quick. "Oh, I say, mother, I was beastly rude to you just now. But I didn't mean to be." "I am sure you didn't." "You see, when one has a mother that one thinks an awful lot of, and who always wears her hair the same, one feels sort of blank when she makes herself look different. But I was rude, and I'm awfully sorry; I didn't mean it for that." She came to the side of the dressing-table and stood looking at her mother with honest, troubled eyes. Regina caught her by the hand and drew her to her ample bosom. "I felt myself growing such a frump," she said. "I don't know when, I think it was about the time of Maudie's wedding, that I felt, all at once, that I was getting into a fossil like all other women workers. I never saw it all those years till about that time, and I hated myself for being frumpy and ridiculous." "You never were that to us," said Julia, with quick reproach. "I hope you never thought we thought so, for we never did." "Well, well, well, I will wear my hair this way for a little while, and if you and dear father do not like it I will put it back into the old way again. It is bad for the hair to dress it always in the same fashion." "Well, now I come to think of it, it looks awfully nice, and you've lovely hair and a glorious complexion." At this the color on Regina's cheeks deepened into a veritable rose blush. Julia hurried on--"It's a beautiful hat," she said. "Where did you get it? How did you light on this Frenchwoman? Was it very expensive? It's worth it, whatever it cost." "No," said Regina, "it was four guineas; I don't call that very expensive for a hat with good feathers." "Oh, not a bit! And even if it was, you can afford it. I think you are quite right, now you have chucked the regeneration business, to start regenerating your own person. I admit it gave me a shock when you came in. You know, somehow one doesn't like the first idea of one's mother being tampered with."