enough to make fun of your not having any hair on your own head to give
anybody? Surely you have a better opinion of me than that? I give you
my word of honor, I never thought of you, or your head, or that infernal
scalping business, when I said what I did. It was true--it happened to
_me."_

"How did it happen?" said. Mat, with eager, angry curiosity.

"Only in this way. I wanted to give her a Hair Bracelet myself--my hair
and Blyth's, and so on. And an addle-headed old woman who seems to know
Madonna (that's a name we give her) as well as Blyth himself, and keeps
what she knows just as close, got me into a corner, and talked nonsense
about the whole thing, as old women will."

"What did she say?" asked Mat, more eager, more angry, and more curious
than ever.

"She talked nonsense, I tell you. She said a Hair Bracelet would be
unlucky to Madonna; and then told me Madonna had one already; and then
wouldn't let me ask Blyth whether it was true, because I should get her
into dreadful trouble if I said anything to him about it; besides a good
deal more which you wouldn't care to be bothered with. But I have told
you enough--haven't I?--to show I was not thinking of you, when I said
that just now by way of a joke. Come, shake hands, old fellow. You're
not offended with me, now I have explained everything?"

Mat gave his hand, but he put it out like a man groping in the dark. His
mind was full of that memorable letter about a Hair Bracelet, which he
had found in the box given to him by Joanna Grice.

"A Hair Bracelet?" he said, vacantly.

"Don't be sulky!" cried Zack, clapping him on the shoulder.

"A Hair Bracelet is unlucky to the young woman--and she's got one
already" (he was weighing attentively the lightest word that Zack had
spoken to him). "What's it like?" he asked aloud, turning suddenly to
young Thorpe.

"What's what like?"

"A Hair Bracelet."

"Still harping on that, after all my explanations! Like? Why it's hair
plaited up, and made to fasten round the wrist, with gold at each end to
clasp it by. What are you stopping for again? I'll tell you what, Mat, I
can make every allowance for a man in your love-struck situation; but
if I didn't know how you had been spending the morning, I should say you
were drunk."

They had been walking along quickly, while Mat asked what a Hair
Bracelet was like. But no sooner had Zack told him than he came to a
dead pause--started and changed color--opened his lips