or the next act.

Must have been ten minutes or more before the two plotters appears
again, chattin' away merry with Mother, who's between 'em. And, say,
you should have seen Mother! Talk about your startlin' changes!
They'd been busy with the make-up box, them two had, and now Mother's
got on just as much war paint as Daughter--maybe a little more. Also
they've dug up a blond transformation somewhere, which covers up all
the brown hair, and they've fitted her out with long jet earrings, and
touched up her eyebrows--and, believe me, with all that yellow hair
down over her eyes, and the rouged lips, she looks just like she'd
strayed in from the White Light district!

You wouldn't think just a little store hair and face calcimine could
make such a change in anybody. Honest, when I tumbles to the fact that
this sporty lookin' female is only Mother fixed up I almost falls out
of the swing! That's nothin' to the jolt that gets to Gladys.

"Mother!" she gasps. "Wha--what have you been doing?"

"Why, I've been getting ready for the tea, Gladys," says she.

"But--but, Mother," says Gladys, "you're never going to let people see
you like that, are you?"

"Why not, my dear?" says Mother.

"But your face--ugh!" says Gladys.

"Oh, bother!" says Mother. "I suppose you'd like to have me look like
Aunt Martha?"

Gladys stares at her for awhile with her eyes wide and set, like she
was watchin' somethin' horrible that she couldn't turn away from, and
then she goes to pieces in a weepin' fit of her own. Nobody
interferes, and right in the midst of it she breaks off, marches over
to a wicker porch table where the mirror and washcloth had been left,
props the glass up against a vase, and goes to work. First off she
sheds the pearl earrings.

At that Mother sits down opposite and follows suit with her jet
danglers.

Next Gladys mops off the scenic effect.

Marjorie produces another washcloth, and Mother makes a clean sweep too.

Gladys snatches out a handful of gold hairpins, destroys the turban
twist that Marie had spent so much time buildin' up, and knots 'er hair
simple in the back.

Mother caps this by liftin' off the blond transformation.

And as I left for a stroll around the grounds they'd both got back to
lookin' more or less nice and natural. They had gone to a close clinch
and was sobbin' affectionate on each other's shoulders.

Later the tea got under way and went on as such things generally do,
with