damp, straight locks hanging in one's eyes, and the long,
fluffy strands, that aren't fluffy at all but as unwavy as a shower
bouquet of macaroni, and the tag ends and whisps sprouting out here and
there like a box full of paint brushes six ways for Sundays--well, one
is always mentally thankful at such times that one's "dearest and best"
isn't anywhere around to behold the horrible sight. But after awhile
the long, damp tresses are patted and fussed over until they are dry,
and then they're combed out and curled up and kinked and twisted, and,
oh, my countrymen, what a change is there! The harsh lines of the mouth
are softened, the eyes look bright and pretty, the complexion comes out
in all its sweetness like the glorious rainbow of a week ago.

It makes all the difference in the world!

But of course you will straightway exclaim: "That's all right to say
about those lucky girls who have nice long tresses, but how about us
poor mortals whose 'crown' consists of eighteen hairs of eighteen
different lengths, and all of them falling out as fast as they can?" To
be sure, conditions do--once in a while--alter cases. But I claim, and
always will claim--till the day comes when beauty matters won't matter
at all--that every woman can have pretty hair if she will take the time
and use the good, uncommon sense which seems necessary to acquire it.

You know, and I know, and every other woman knows, that women treat
their hair as they treat their watches--to unpardonable abuse. Of
course, one's hair isn't dropped on the sidewalk or prodded with
stickpins until the mainspring breaks, but it is subjected to even
deeper and more trying insults. One night, when the little woman is in
a real good, amiable mood, the tresses are carefully taken down,
brushed, doctored with a nice "smelly" tonic, patted caressingly and
gently plaited in nice little braids. The next night it is crimped
until each individual hair has acute curvature of the spine; then it is
burned off in chunks and triangles and squares; it is yanked out by the
handfuls, it is wadded and twisted and tugged at and built up into an
Eiffel tower, and--after a few hours of such torture--the little woman
takes out the sixty odd hairpins, shakes it loose, gets every hair into
a three-ply tangle of its own, and then hops into bed! When she gets up
in the morning she pulls out and combs out more hair than she can make
grow in after seven months' careful treatment.

I tell you t