'm
coming!"

"It beats all," Grandmother said, fretfully, when she rushed
breathlessly into the dining-room. "For the life of me I can't
understand how you can sleep so much."

Rosemary smiled grimly, but said nothing.

"Here I've been settin', waitin' for my breakfast, since before six, and
it's almost seven now."

"Never mind," the girl returned, kindly; "I'll get it ready just as
quickly as I can."

"I was just sayin'," Grandmother continued when Aunt Matilda came into
the room, "that it beats all how Rosemary can sleep. I've been up since
half-past five and she's just beginnin' to get breakfast, and here you
come, trailin' along in with your hair not combed, at ten minutes to
breakfast time. I should think you'd be ashamed."

"My hair is combed," Matilda retorted, quickly on the defensive.

"I don't know when it was," Grandmother fretted. "I ain't seen it combed
since I can remember."

"Then it's because you ain't looked. Any time you want to see me
combin' my hair you can come in. I do it every morning."

[Sidenote: Fluffy Hair]

Grandmother laughed, sarcastically. "'Pears like you thought you was one
of them mermaids I was readin' about in the paper once. They're half
fish and half woman and they set on rocks, combin' their hair and
singin' and the ships go to pieces on the rocks 'cause the sailors are
so anxious to see 'em they forget where they're goin'."

"There ain't no rocks outside my door as I know of," Matilda returned,
"and only one rocker inside."

"No, nor your hair ain't like theirs neither. The paper said their hair
was golden."

"Must be nice and stiff," Matilda commented. "I'd hate to have my hair
all wire."

Grandmother lifted her spectacles from the wart and peered through them
critically. "I dunno," she said, "as it'd look any different, except for
the colour. The way you're settin' now, against the light, I can see
bristles stickin' out all over it, same as if 'twas wire."

"Fluffy hair is all the style now," said Matilda, complacently.

"Fluffy!" Grandmother grunted. "If that's what you call it, I reckon
it'll soon go out. It might have been out for fifteen or twenty years
and you not know it. I don't believe any self-respectin' woman would let
her hair go like that. Why 'n the name of common sense can't you take a
hair brush and wet it in cold water and slick it up, so's folks can see
that it's combed? Mine's always slick, and nobody can't say that it
isn't."

[Sidenote