not a man easily surprised. 'Permit me, mademoiselle, would
it not be better to remove the hat? Mon Dieu! Holy Mary, what hair!' For
as the Eastern women carry their burdens on the crown of the head to
ease the weight, so, when the large hat was off, it appeared that the
baker's daughter carried her hair.

'Like the hair of a woman on a hair-restorer bottle, if it were red,'
remarked the girl in answer to the exclamation.

'No, mademoiselle, no, it is not red. Mon Dieu! it is not red. Holy
Mary! it is the colour of the sun. Mon Dieu, what hair!' As he untwined
the masses, it fell over the long bib, over the high chair, down till it
swept the floor, in one unbroken flood of light.

'Wash it, and cut it, and let me go home to make my father's dinner,'
said the quick voice with decision. 'My father is the baker round the
corner, and he takes his dinner at two.'

'Is it that mademoiselle desires the ends cut?' asked the hairdresser,
resuming his professional manner.

'Which ends?'

'Which ends?' he exclaimed, baffled. 'Mon Dieu! these ends,' and he
lifted a handful of the hair on the floor and held it before the eyes of
the girl.

'Good Heavens, no! Do you think I am going to pay you for cutting those
ends? It's the ends at the top I want cut. Lighten it; that's what I
want. Do you think I am a woman in a hairdresser's advertisement to sit
all day looking at my hair? I have to get my father's dinner. Lighten
it, Mr. Saintou; cut it off; that's what I want.'

'Mon Dieu, no!' Saintou again relapsed from the hairdresser into the
man. He too could have decision. He leant against the next chair and set
his lips very firmly together. 'By all that is holy, no,' he said; 'you
may get some villain Englishman to cut that hair, but me, never.'

'You speak English very well, Mr. Saintou. Have you been long in the
country? Well, wash the hair then, and be done. Don't put the soap in my
eyes.'

Saintou was in ecstasies. He touched the hair reverently as one would
touch the garments of a saint. He laid aside his ordinary brushes and
sponges, and going into the shop he brought thence what was best and
newest. Do not laugh at him. Have we not all at some time in our lives
met with what seemed the embodiment of our ideal; have we not set aside
for the time our petty economies and reserves, and brought forth
whatever we had that was best, of thought, or smiles, or vesture?

'Ah, mademoiselle,' he said, 'to take care of such hair