rivate drawer she kept a jam tin
filled with oatmeal, that she used in the water every time she
washed, having read it was a great complexion beautifier. And
nightly she rubbed vaseline on her hands and slept in old kid
gloves. And her spare money went in the purchase of "Freckle
Lotion," to remove that slight powdering of warm brown sun-kisses
that somehow lent a certain character to her face.

All these things were the outcome of being sixteen, and having
found a friend of seventeen.

Aldith MacCarthy learnt French from the same teacher that Meg
was going to twice a week, and after an exchange of chocolates,
hair-ribbons, and family confidences a friendship sprang up.

Aldith had three grown-up sisters, whom she aped in everything,
and was considerably wiser in the world than simple-minded,
romantic Meg.

She lent Meg novels, "Family Herald Supplements", "Young Ladies'
Journals", and such publications, and the young girl took to them
with avidity, surprised at the new world into which they took her;
for Charlotte Yonge and Louisa Alcott and Miss Wetherall had hitherto
formed her simple and wholesome fare.

Meg began to dream rose-coloured dreams of the time when her fair,
shining hair should be gathered up into "a simple knot at the back
of her head" or "brushed into a regal coronet," these being the
styles in which the heroines in the novels invariably dressed
their hair. A pigtail done in three was very unromantic. That
was why, as a sort of compromise, she cut herself a fringe and
began to frizz out the end of her plait. Her father stared at her,
and said she looked like a shop-girl, when first he noticed it,
and Esther told her she was a stupid child; but the looking-glass
and Aldith reassured her.

The next thing was surreptitiously to lengthen her dresses, which
were at the short-long stage. In the privacy of her own bedroom
she took the skirts of two or three of her frocks off the band,
inserted a piece of lining for lengthening purposes, and then
added a frill to the waists of her bodices to hide the join. This
dropped the skirts a good two inches, and made her look quite a
tall, slim figure, as she was well aware.

And none of these things were very harmful.

But Aldith gradually grew dissatisfied with her waist.

"You're at least twenty-three, Marguerite," she said once, quite in
a horrified way. She never called her friend Meg, pronouncing that
name to be "too domestic and altogether unl