“There are two or three things that have to be done first, Mattie dear. I’m always a beast up till noon, so you mustn’t be surprised if I’m brutally frank now. Dr. Courtneidge is a very fussy and snappy old gentleman. He has only swells for patients and he’s very particular.” “Don’t he treat poor folks at tall?” Momma gasped. “Oh, yes, he has free clinics and hospitals and all that and does half his work for nothing. That’s why he’s so particular with his pay patients. You’ve got to go through a course of sprouts and buy some things or you’ll never get near him. “His reception room is full of people, and you’d feel terribly embarrassed to wait there till he gets round. So you really must have some of this year’s clothes and a 1920 hat. And your hair--you mustn’t be offended, Mattie, dear, but really your hair and your skin! He’d give you one glance and send you away without an examination even. You see, I know him. “And then the examination, Mattie dear--well, you know what that’s like. And in the hospital--well! I saw the nightgown laid out on your pillow and that sort of thing would simply frighten the doctor to death. He really couldn’t operate.” “I’m not looking to marry the old fool,” Momma mumbled. “I got one husband a’ready.” “I know, my dear Mattie, but your one husband put you in my charge and I’m going to see you through. My masseuse is coming to my house this morning. She’s downstairs now, I imagine, and I’m going to have her begin on you. When she’s finished, my hairdresser, François, will get to work on that dear old poll of yours and take off about forty years of age. Then we’ll have lunch and go shopping.” Momma was choked with wrath, but Ella would neither fight nor plead. She just bullied her with laughter, and Momma, feeling like a convict unjustly imprisoned, set her jaws and resolved to go through with the sentence. She revolted, however, at the insolence of the masseuse--and her exclamations of horror at the neglect of a “skin that had never really been cleaned.” But the wretch silenced Momma’s indignation with the indignity of smeared cold cream, and smothered her with hot towels and cold towels, and with lotions of every odor and smart. Momma would not speak to her as she left, but when she scowled at the mirror, she gazed at the new face aghast it flung back at her. The dull parchment of her skin had become a living integument with a kind of dreamy radiance alive in it. Momma felt bewitched. She would have sworn that the image in the looking-glass smiled first at her and nodded, compelling her to smile back and nod in return. She hung there fascinated, understanding a little of what Narcissus felt when he looked first in the pool. Then a quiet Frenchman was shown in. He overawed Momma by his dignity and his dexterity. She dared not slap his face when he spoke of her hair as a crime. He called it a “cream,” but she understood his shoulders.