ut both dwellings in order, but
it would be interesting work. I love the making of interiors, and if
Pastimes must be fitted beautifully to do justice to itself, still more
would it be needful to turn the uninspiring "flat" into a haven of
comfort and cheer.

At this precise moment my prancing brought me in front of the long
mirror, and what I beheld therein brought me up with a gasp. Twenty-six
is quite a venerable age, but at moments of happiness and exhilaration
it has a disconcerting trick of switching back to seventeen. That
smiling, bright-eyed, pink-and-white-cheeked girl in the glass, with two
long pigtails of hair hanging to her waist, looked really absurdly
juvenile! Given a small stretch of imagination, you might have believed
that she was a flapper preparing for her last term at school; by no
possible mental effort could you have placed her as a douce maiden lady,
living alone in London, devoting herself to good works in a manner as
adventurous as it was unusual.

Mothers of children would insinuate that I was a child myself; troubled
matrons would purse their lips, and say, "I can't tell _you_, my dear.
You are too young." Certainly, oh, most certainly, men of all ages
would put me down as a designing minx! In vain industry, self-sacrifice
and generosity--that young face, that bright youthful colouring would
nullify all my efforts.

It was true--it was true! I looked, as Aunt Eliza had pointed out, a
dozen years too young for the part. People would stare, people would
talk, people would advise me to go back and live with my aunts, and wait
ten years.

In a frenzy of impatience I seized the two long plaits, and twisted them
now this way, now that. Astonishing the difference which hair-dressing
can make! I have read of a heroine who passed successfully as her own
twin sister by the simple device of plainly brushed hair and puritanical
garments, the sister, of course, sporting marcelle waves and Parisian
costumes. I dipped my brush in the water-jug and dragged back my own
hair in a plastered mass, clamping the plaits to my head. I looked like
a Dutch doll! Clean and chubby, and, alas! considerably younger than
before. I parted it in the middle, and glued it over my ears. I looked
like a naughty schoolgirl, who had had her hair dressed by a maiden
aunt. I piled the plaits in a coronet over my forehead; I looked like a
portrait of a Norwegian damsel dressed for her bridal. I threw down the