[Illustration: “‘The truth is,’ answered Lady Jane, ‘it’s about your hair.’”] “The truth is,” answered Lady Jane, “it’s about your hair. Are you sure you don’t mind? Don’t you think that perhaps, if you did not draw it back so very tight, it might look--er--a little less--er--unprepossessing?” “It’s so easy to do it in this way,” answered Miss Scott, and she made her right eye wander rather wildly, for that was one of the tricks she had learnt in amateur theatricals. “But I shall be only too happy to try something else, if you do not think it would seem ridiculous.” “I’m sure you needn’t be afraid of that,” said Lady Jane; “and besides, no one else will notice it, you know. I mean,” she added, not wishing to seem unkind, “I mean that no one will care, you know, except me, and I should like you to look--er--a little more like other people.” “I quite understand,” answered Miss Scott; “I’ll do my best. But I ought to tell you that when my hair isn’t pulled straight back, it’s wavy.” “All the better,” answered Lady Jane, with satisfaction. “That will be very nice.” She had really felt that, in spite of Miss Scott’s admirable qualities, she was almost too hideous to be seen in town with two very smart girls. She might perhaps be taken for a maid. As I have said, Ellen had nice wavy hair, though it was of no particular colour, and when she came down to breakfast the next morning, having arranged it as she did at home, the change in her appearance was surprising. She still had a red nose, a blotched cheek, and a bump on her shoulder, and she limped; but she no longer looked like a skinned rabbit. Evelyn and Gwendolen exchanged glances, and said in their evil hearts that the change was a step in the right direction, since it must be intended to please Lionel. Lady Jane smiled at her and nodded approvingly, but her prediction proved to be well founded, for neither the Colonel, nor Jocelyn, nor Claude, nor any one of the three Trevelyans, even glanced at the governess. And she had managed to tell Lionel of the advice his mother had given her, so that he showed no surprise. On that day and the next, a large party of people came for the week-end, and when the house was full the governess and the girls had all their meals apart in the regions of the schoolroom, visited only by Lady Jane and occasionally by Lionel.