"But I want a pink bandeau, mother," replied Florrie a little pettishly,
as she patted her golden-red fringe. "I wonder where Gabriella is? Isn't
she ever coming, Miss Lancaster?"

"I thought I saw her when I came in," observed Mrs. Spencer, craning her
handsome neck, which was running to fat, in the direction of the
trimming room. "Florrie, just turn your head after a minute and look at
the hat Patty Carrington is buying--pea green, and it makes her face
look like a walnut. She hasn't the faintest idea how to dress. Do you
think I ought to speak to her about it?"


"No, let her alone," replied Florrie impatiently. "Is this any better
than the Leghorn?"

"Well, I must say I don't think there is much style about it, though, of
course, with your hair, you can carry off anything. Isn't it odd how
exactly she inherited my hair, Miss Lancaster? I remember her father
used to say that he would have fallen in love with a gatepost if it had
had golden-red hair."

Miss Lancaster, a thin, erect woman of fifty, with impassive features,
and iron-gray hair that looked as if it were rolled over wood, glanced
resignedly from Mrs. Spencer's orange-coloured crimps to the imprisoned
sunlight in Florrie's hair.

"I'd know you were mother and daughter anywhere," she remarked in the
noncommittal manner she had acquired in thirty years of independence;
"and she is going to have your beautiful figure, too, Mrs. Spencer."