it'll grow again.
How old are you?"

"Almost twenty-one," said Betty thoughtfully. "Just three months more
and I'll be twenty-one."

"H'm! Of age!" said Jane with a sharp significant look at her, as if a
new thought had occurred. "Well, you don't look it! You could pass for
fifteen, especially if you had your hair bobbed. I can do it for you if
you say so."

"All right," said Betty promptly without a qualm. "I always wanted it
short. It's an awful nuisance to comb."

"That's the talk!" said Jane. "Say 'awful' a lot, and you'll kinda get
into the hang of it. It sounds more--well, _natural_, you know; not like
society talk. Here, sit down and I'll do it quick before you get cold
feet. I sure do hate to drop them curls, but I guess it's best."

The scissors snipped, snipped, and the lovely strands of bright hair
fell on the paper Jane had spread for them. Betty sat cropped like a
sweet young boy. Jane stood back and surveyed the effect through her
lashes approvingly. She knew the exact angle at which the hair should
splash out on the cheek to be stylish. She had often contemplated
cutting her own, only that her mother had begged her not to, and she
realized that her hair was straight as a die and would never submit to
being tortured into that alluring wave over the ear and out toward the
cheekbone. But this sweet young thing was a darling! She felt that the
daring deed had been a success.

"I got a bottle of stuff to make your hair dark," she remarked. "I guess
we better put it on. That hair of yours is kinda conspicuous, you know,
even when it's cut off. It won't do you any harm. It washes off soon."
And she dashed something on the yellow hair. Betty sat with closed eyes
and submitted. Then her mentor burnt a cork and put a touch to the
eyebrows that made a different Betty out of her. A soft smudge of dark
under her eyes and a touch of talcum powder gave her a sickly complexion
and when Betty stood up and looked in the glass she did not know
herself. Jane finished the toilet by a smart though somewhat shabby
black hat pulled well down over Betty's eyes, and a pair of gray cotton
gloves, somewhat worn at the fingers. The high-laced boots she put upon
the girl's feet were two sizes too large, and wobbled frightfully, but
they did well enough, and there seemed nothing more to be desired.

"Now," said Jane as she pinned on her own hat, "you've gotta have a name
to go by. I guess you better be Lizzie Hope. It kinda be