"Come upstairs with me, Tom," she whispered, when they were outside the
door. "There's something I want to do before dinner."

"There's no time to play at anything before dinner," said Tom.

"Oh, yes, there is time for this--_do_ come, Tom."

Tom followed Maggie upstairs into her mother's room, and saw her go at
once to a drawer from which she took out a large pair of scissors.

"What are they for, Maggie?" said Tom, feeling his curiosity awakened.

Maggie answered by seizing her front locks and cutting them straight
across the middle of her forehead.

"Oh, my buttons, Maggie, you'll catch it!" exclaimed Tom; "you'd better
not cut any more off."

Snip! went the great scissors again while Tom was speaking; and he could
hardly help feeling it was rather good fun--Maggie looking so queer.

"Here, Tom, cut it behind for me," said Maggie, excited by her own
daring, and anxious to finish the deed.

"You'll catch it, you know," said Tom, hesitating a little as he took
the scissors.

"Never mind--make haste!" said Maggie, giving a little stamp with her
foot. Her cheeks were quite flushed.

The black locks were so thick,--nothing could be more tempting to a lad
who had already tasted the forbidden pleasure of cutting the pony's
mane. One delicious grinding snip, and then another and another, and the
hinder locks fell heavily on the floor. Maggie stood cropped in a
jagged, uneven manner, but with a sense of clearness and freedom, as if
she had emerged from a wood into the open plain.

"Oh, Maggie," said Tom, jumping round her and slapping his knees as he
laughed; "oh, my buttons, what a queer thing you look! Look at yourself
in the glass."

Maggie felt an unexpected pang. She had thought beforehand chiefly of
her own deliverance from her teasing hair and teasing remarks about it,
and something also of the triumph she should have over her mother and
her aunts by this very decided course of action. She didn't want her
hair to look pretty--that was out of the question--she only wanted
people to think her a clever little girl and not to find fault with her.
But now, when Tom began to laugh at her, the affair had quite a new
aspect. She looked in the glass, and still Tom laughed and clapped his
hands, and Maggie's flushed cheeks began to pale, and her lips to
tremble a little.

"Oh, Maggie, you'll have to go down to dinner directly," said Tom. "Oh,
my!"

"Don't laugh at me, Tom," said Maggie, in a passionate tone,