rself in the glass, she went away to find a
remedy.

In the back of the cook-book, she remembered, there was a receipt for
cold cream, and in a magazine Mrs. Lee had loaned them was a whole
column devoted to face bleaches and complexion restorers. Having read
each formula, she decided to try them all in turn, if the first did not
prove effective.

Buttermilk and lemon juice were to be had for the taking and could be
applied at night after Joyce had gone to sleep. Half-ashamed of this
desire to make herself beautiful, Mary shrank from confiding her
troubles to any one. But several nights' use of all the home remedies
she could get, failed to produce the desired results. When she anxiously
examined herself in the glass, the unflattering mirror plainly showed
her a little face, not one whit fairer for all its treatment.

The house-party was drawing near too rapidly to waste time on things of
such slow action, and at last, in desperation, she took down the
savings-bank in which, after long hoarding, she had managed to save
nearly two dollars. By dint of a button-hook and a hat-pin and an hour's
patient poking, she succeeded in extracting five dimes. These she
wrapped in tissue paper, and folded in a letter. In a Phoenix
newspaper she had seen an advertisement of a magical cosmetic, to be
found on sale at one of the local drug-stores, and this was an order
for a box.

She was accustomed to running out to watch for the postman. Often in her
eagerness to get the mail she had met him half a mile down the road. So
she had ample opportunity to send her order and receive a reply without
the knowledge of any of the family.

It was a delicious-smelling ointment. The directions on the wrapper said
that on retiring, it was to be applied to the face like a thick paste,
and a linen mask worn to prevent its rubbing off.

Now that the boys were away, Mary shared the circular tent with Joyce.
The figures "mystical and awful" which she and Holland had put on its
walls with green paint the day they moved to the Wigwam, had faded
somewhat in the fierce sun of tropical summers, but they still grinned
hideously from all sides. Outlandish as they were, however, no face on
all the encircling canvas was as grotesque as the one which emerged from
under the bed late in the afternoon, the day the box of cosmetic was
received.

Mary had crept under the bed in order to escape Norman's prying eyes in
case he should glance into the tent in searc