or be a Mohammedan if it keeps her straight. She has a bad
inheritance, Miss White; I would be only too pleased to know that
she was shut up in a convent, safe and sound. But this whim isn't
worth talking about."

Miss White retired, nibbling with horror, and that night Robert
Ferguson went in to tell his neighbor his worries.

"What _am_ I to do with her?" he groaned. "She cut off her
hair?" Mrs. Richie repeated, astounded; "but why? How perfectly
irrational!"

"Don't say 'how irrational'; say 'how Elizabeth.'"

"I wish she would try to control her temper," Mrs. Richie said,
anxiously.

But Mr. Ferguson was not troubled about that. "She's vain;
that's what worries me. She cried all afternoon about her hair."

"She needs a stronger hand than kind Miss White's," Mrs. Richie
said; "why not send her to school?" And the harassed uncle sighed
with relief at the idea, which was put into immediate execution.

With growing hair and the wholesome companionship of other girls,
of course the ascetic impulse died a natural death; but the
temper did not die. It only hid itself under that sense of
propriety which is responsible for so much of our good behavior.
When it did break loose, the child suffered afterward from the
consciousness of having made a fool of herself--which is a