ughts and deliberately roused
herself to plan her future.

The first necessity, she decided, was to change her appearance so far as
possible, so that if news of her escape, with full description, had been
telegraphed, she might evade notice. To that end, she arose in the early
dawning of a gray and misty morning, and arranged her hair as she had
never worn it before, in two braids and wound closely about her head. It
was neat, and appropriate to the vocation which she had decided upon, and
it made more difference in her appearance than any other thing she could
have done. All the soft, fluffy fulness of rippling hair that had framed
her face was drawn close to her head, and the smooth bands gave her the
simplicity and severity of a saint in some old picture. She pinned up her
gown until it did not show below the long black coat, and folded a white
linen handkerchief about her throat over the delicate lace and garniture
of the modish waist. Then she looked dubiously at the hat.

With a girl's instinct, her first thought was for her borrowed plumage. A
fine mist was slanting down and had fretted the window-pane until there
was nothing visible but dull gray shadows of a world that flew
monotonously by. With sudden remembrance, she opened the suit-case and
took out the folded black hat, shook it into shape, and put it on. It was
mannish, of course, but girls often wore such hats.

As she surveyed herself in the long mirror of her door, the slow color
stole into her cheeks. Yet the costume was not unbecoming, nor unusual.
She looked like a simple schoolgirl, or a young business woman going to
her day's work.

But she looked at the fashionable proportions of the other hat with
something like alarm. How could she protect it? She did not for a moment
think of abandoning it, for it was her earnest desire to return it at
once, unharmed, to its kind purloiner.

She summoned the newsboy and purchased three thick newspapers. From these,
with the aid of a few pins, she made a large package of the hat. To be
sure, it did not look like a hat when it was done, but that was all the
better. The feathers were upheld and packed softly about with bits of
paper crushed together to make a springy cushion, and the whole built out
and then covered over with paper. She reflected that girls who wore their
hair wound about their heads and covered by plain felt hats would not be
unlikely to carry large newspaper-wrapped packages through the city