They had cut her thick hair during scarlet fever, and Joan refused to allow it to grow again. She invariably found scissors and snipped and snipped, and Mrs. Ogden's resistance broke down at the final act of defiance, when she was discovered hacking at her hair with a pen-knife. 2 As the front door slammed behind Colonel Ogden the sisters smiled at each other. Mrs. Ogden had gone to countermand the local bacon, and they were alone. "Rot!" said Joan firmly. "What is?" asked Milly. "The bacon row." "Oh, how dare you!" cried Milly in a voice of rapture. "Supposing you were heard!" "There's no one to hear me--anyhow, it is rot!" Milly danced. "You'll catch it if mother hears you!" Her fair curls bobbed as she skipped round the room. "Mind that cup," warned Joan. But it was too late; the cup fell crashing to the floor. Just then Mrs. Ogden came in. "Who broke that cup?" There was silence. "Well?" she waited. Milly caught Joan's eye. Joan saw the appeal in that look. "I--I----" Milly began. "It was my fault," said Joan calmly. "Then you ought to be more careful, especially when you know how your father values this breakfast set. Really it's too bad; what will he say? What possessed you, Joan?" Mrs. Ogden put her hand up to her head wearily, glancing at Joan as she did so. Joan was so quick to respond to the appeal of illness. Mrs. Ogden would not have admitted to herself how much she longed for this quick response and sympathy. She, who for years had been the giver, she who had ministered to a man with heart disease, she who had become a veritable reservoir of soothing phrases, solicitous actions, tabloids, hot stoups and general restoratives. There were times, growing more frequent of late, when she longed, yes, longed to break down utterly, to become bedridden, to be waited upon hand and foot, to have arresting symptoms of her own, any number of them.