ssons to be learned still ahead. But Hugh would never
again be a stranger with her respect and love yet to be won. She
could admire his strength of will and purpose whole heartedly and as
she contrasted them with Aunt Trudy's characteristics, Rosemary
insensibly found her aunt wanting.

She said something of this to Jack Welles the day after the
memorable hair cutting. Rosemary had endured the comments and
questions of the household at dinner that night with fair composure,
but she had flared up in wrath at Jack's laughter when he first met
her the following afternoon.

"My mother says it is extremely ill-bred to indulge in comments on a
person's personal appearance," declared Rosemary heatedly. "My hair
is a part of my personal appearance."

"What a dub you were to have it cut," said Jack, sobering. "But it
might look worse, Rosemary, honestly it might. I think it is rather
becoming with those ends curling under like that."

Rosemary permitted herself to be calmed.

"It's fun to brush it," she laughed. "And my head feels as light as
a feather."

"What did Hugh say?" asked Jack curiously. "Or didn't you ask him?
And Aunt Trudy makes such a fuss about your hair--wasn't she
horrified?"

Rosemary's expressive face shadowed.

"Hugh was just dear to me!" she said enigmatically, "but Aunt Trudy
was so silly. She cried and cried and said what would my mother say
and wasn't I ever going to have any respect for her wishes--she is
so tiresome, she really is, Jack."

"Then you must have been told not to have it bobbed and went ahead
like your usual perverse small self," declared Jack shrewdly. "I'll
bet Hugh didn't weep though--he looks to me as though he could talk
to you like a Dutch uncle."

"Well I don't care if he did!" said Rosemary. "I'd rather be scolded
or punished than cried over. And Aunt Trudy doesn't cry because she
is sorry--she does it to get her own way. That's the way she makes
us mind--she cries and says we don't love her and that makes us feel
mean.

"But I don't think it is fair one bit and afterward I'm so mad I
could throw a sofa cushion at her. You needn't look at me like that,
Jack Welles! Your aunt doesn't cry over _you_."

CHAPTER VII

THE RUNAWAY

June slipped quietly into July and with the long, hot sunny days
came the inclination to slight regular tasks as Winnie had
predicted. Sarah tried to beg off from making the beds morning after
morning and Shirley began to grumble wh