ng you in to your work, I saw I must put up an
appearance that wouldn't disgrace you, so I thought I'd best remove the
crust. It took some time, and I hope I may die before I ever endure the
feel and the smell of the stuff I used again, but it skinned me nicely.
What you now see is my own with a little dust of rice powder, for
protection. I'm sort of tender yet."

"And your lovely, lovely hair?" breathed Elnora.

"Hairdresser did that!" said Mrs. Comstock. "It cost like smoke. But I
watched her, and with a little help from you I can wash it alone next
time, though it will be hard work. I let her monkey with it until she
said she had found 'my style.' Then I tore it down and had her show me
how to build it up again three times. I thought my arms would drop. When
I paid the bill for her work, the time I'd taken, the pins, and combs
she'd used, I nearly had heart failure, but I didn't turn a hair before
her. I just smiled at her sweetly and said, 'How reasonable you are!'
Come to think of it, she was! She might have charged me ten dollars for
what she did quite as well as nine seventy-five. I couldn't have helped
myself. I had made no bargain to begin on."

Then Elnora leaned back in her chair and shouted, in a gust of hearty
laughter, so a little of the ache ceased in her breast. There was no
time to think, the remainder of that evening, she was so tired she had
to sleep, while her mother did not awaken her until she barely had time
to dress, breakfast and reach school. There was nothing in the new life
to remind her of the old. It seemed as if there never came a minute for
retrospection, but her mother appeared on the scene with more work, or
some entertaining thing to do.

Mrs. Comstock invited Elnora's friends to visit her, and proved herself
a bright and interesting hostess. She digested a subject before she
spoke; and when she advanced a view, her point was sure to be original
and tersely expressed. Before three months people waited to hear what
she had to say. She kept her appearance so in mind that she made a
handsome and a distinguished figure.

Elnora never mentioned Philip Ammon, neither did Mrs. Comstock. Early in
December came a note and a big box from him. It contained several books
on nature subjects which would be of much help in school work, a number
of conveniences Elnora could not afford, and a pair of glass-covered
plaster casts, for each large moth she had. In these the upper and
underwings of mal