The drubbing went relentlessly on. Miriam steadied her head against it and gradually warmth and ease began to return to her shivering, clenched body. Her hair was gathered into the steaming basin--dipped and rinsed and spread, a comforting compress, warm with the water, over her egg-sodden head. There was more drubbing, more dipping and rinsing. The second basin was re-filled from the kitchen, and after a final rinse in its fresh warm water, Miriam found herself standing up--with a twisted tail of wet hair hanging down over her cape of damp towel--glowing and hungry. "Thank you," she said timidly to Frau Krause's bustling presence. "Gun' Tak' Fr'n," said Frau Krause, disappearing into the kitchen. Miriam gave her hair a preliminary drying, gathered her dressing-gown together and went upstairs. From the schoolroom came unmistakable sounds. They were evidently at dinner. She hurried to her attic. What _was_ she to do with her hair? She rubbed it desperately--fancy being landed with hair like that, in the middle of the day! She could not possibly go down.... She must. Fräulein Pfaff would expect her to--and would be disgusted if she were not quick--she towelled frantically at the short strands round her forehead, despairingly screwed them into Hinde's and towelled at the rest. What had the other girls done? If only she could look into the schoolroom before going down--it was awful--what should she do?... She caught sight of a sodden-looking brush on Mademoiselle's bed. Mademoiselle had put hers up--she had seen her ... of course ... easy enough for her little fluffy clouds--she could do nothing with her straight, wet lumps--she began to brush it out--it separated into thin tails which flipped tiny drops of moisture against her hands as she brushed. Her arms ached; her face flared with her exertions. She was ravenous--she must manage somehow and go down. She braided the long strands and fastened their cold mass with extra hairpins. Then she unfastened the Hinde's--two tendrils flopped limply against her forehead. She combed them out. They fell in a curtain of streaks to her nose. Feverishly she divided them, draped them somehow back into the rest of her hair and fastened them. "Oh," she breathed, "my _ghastly_ forehead." It was all she could do--short of gas and curling tongs. Even the candle was taken away in the day-time. It was cold and bleak upstairs. Her wet hair lay in a heavy mass against her burning head. She was painfully hungry. She went down. 20