"I do not know," he answered truthfully enough. His manner was so
entirely non-provocative that her resentment for a moment dropped.

"What's changed you since yesterday?" she persisted. "What is it that
you don't like about us, anyway? What do you want us to do?"

Burton sighed. He would have given a great deal to have been able to
prevaricate, but he could not. It was the truth alone which he could
speak.

"I should like you," he said, "to take down your hair and throw away all
that is not real, to wash it until it is its natural color, to brush it
hard, and then do it up quite simply, without a net or anything. Then I
should like you to wash your face thoroughly in plain soap and water and
never again touch a powder-puff or that nasty red stuff you have on your
lips. I should like you to throw away those fancy blouses with the
imitation lace, which are ugly to start with, and which you can't afford
to have washed often enough, and I should like you to buy some plain
linen shirts and collars, a black tie, and a blue serge skirt made so
that you could walk in it naturally."

Ellen did not at that moment need any rouge, nor any artificial means of
lending brightness to her eyes. What she really seemed to need was
something to keep her still.

"Anything else?" she demanded, unsteadily.

"Some thicker stockings, or, if not thicker, stockings without that
open-work stuff about them," Burton continued earnestly, warming now to
his task. "You see, the open-work places have all spread into little