"What did keep you two so long?" asked Edith, coming to meet them with a
bright face. If her happy thoughts had not been dwelling on the zebra
cat just presented her by the "knitting-woman," she would have observed
at once that mamma and Kyzie had been "talking secrets"; though she
might not have suspected that this had anything to do with the vacation
school.

"Do hurry along," she added. "I want to show you the funniest sight! I
don't believe you've seen Barbara Hale, have you?"

Edith could hardly speak for laughing; and her mother and Kyzie did not
wonder when they beheld the figure that little Bab had made of herself,
by a new style of dressing her hair. The two little girls were, as I
have told you, as different as possible, but had an intense desire to
look "just alike"; and when they tried their best the result was very
funny.

I will mention here that Lucy "despised" her own hair for not being
straight like Bab's, and had often tried to braid it down her back; but
as the braid always came out and the ribbon came off, the attempt had
been forbidden.

Now, however, as the children had left their city home and come to a
place where everybody was "on holiday," the mammas decided that they
might have a little more liberty.

Their dresses were off the same piece,--good, strong brown ones; their
hats were alike; and, as for their hair, they were allowed to wear it as
they pleased "just for this summer."