te dressing-gown, with all her
luxuriant brown hair hanging dishevelled down her figure, and thus
Sally spoke:

"Missus--or miss, as the case may be--I've my doubts as to you. I'm
not going to have my master and Miss Faith put upon, or shame come
near them. Widows wears these sort o' caps, and has their hair cut
off; and whether widows wears wedding-rings or not, they shall have
their hair cut off--they shall. I'll have no half work in this house.
I've lived with the family forty-nine year come Michaelmas, and I'll
not see it disgraced by any one's fine long curls. Sit down and let
me snip off your hair, and let me see you sham decently in a widow's
cap to-morrow, or I'll leave the house. Whatten's come over Miss
Faith, as used to be as mim a lady as ever was, to be taken by such
as you, I dunnot know. Here! sit down with ye, and let me crop you."

She laid no light hand on Ruth's shoulder; and the latter, partly
intimidated by the old servant, who had hitherto only turned
her vixen lining to observation, and partly because she was
broken-spirited enough to be indifferent to the measure proposed,
quietly sat down. Sally produced the formidable pair of scissors that
always hung at her side, and began to cut in a merciless manner. She
expected some remonstrance or some opposition, and had a torrent of
words ready to flow forth at the least sign of rebellion; but Ruth
was still and silent, with meekly-bowed head, under the strange hands
that were shearing her beautiful hair into the clipped shortness of a
boy's. Long before she had finished, Sally had some slight misgivings
as to the fancied necessity of her task; but it was too late, for
half the curls were gone, and the rest must now come off. When she
had done, she lifted up Ruth's face by placing her hand under the
round white chin. She gazed into the countenance, expecting to read
some anger there, though it had not come out in words; but she only
met the large, quiet eyes, that looked at her with sad gentleness
out of their finely-hollowed orbits. Ruth's soft, yet dignified
submission, touched Sally with compunction, though she did not choose
to show the change in her feelings. She tried to hide it, indeed, by
stooping to pick up the long bright tresses; and, holding them up
admiringly, and letting them drop down and float on the air (like
the pendant branches of the weeping birch), she said: "I thought
we should ha' had some crying--I did. They're pretty curls eno