irl prepared to depart, "the
application will have to be renewed as the hair grows. Otherwise it
would be dark at the roots while the ends would be yellow."

"Will it?" asked Bee in dismay. "I thought that this was all there was
to it."

"No. It takes time and patience to attain gold even in the hair." Miss
Harris laughed at her little joke. "Whenever it needs touching up, come
in and we'll soon fix you up."

"Thank you," said Beatrice as she left.

"It's going to take every cent of this month's allowance," she mused as
she stopped at a milliner's and ordered a white chip hat with purple
pansies for trimming sent home, "but it costs to be a beauty. One must
dress for it, Adele always says. I always liked her best when she wore
great big purple pansies on her hat. Now for the jimpson."

Jimpson weeds abounded by the roadside. Bee filled the bottom of the
buggy with them, and then drove home. Ignoring Joel's surprised looks
the girl reached the house without meeting any one else, and went
directly to her room.

"I won't go down to dinner," was her thought. "I'll burst upon father in
the morning like a new being. Won't he be surprised?"

Chapter VI

A Night of Misery

"Man on the dubious waves of error tossed,
His ship half foundered and his compass lost,
Sees, far as human optics many command,
A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land:
Spreads all his canvas, every sinew plies,
Pants for it, aims at it, enters it, and dies."

--_Truth. Cowper._

The night was warm, and Beatrice found her poultice exceedingly
uncomfortable. She had heaped the leaves on a clean cloth, mashed them
to a pulp, spread the mass between two other cloths through which were
cut small holes for the eyes and nostrils, and then, with a resolution
worthy of a better cause, bound the whole upon her face.

The juices of the crushed leaves soon wet the mask through and through,
making her face wet and sticky. The greenish odor of the weed was
sickening, and the poor child found her condition unpleasant to say the
least. She tossed restlessly from side to side in the vain effort to
find sleep, but slumber fled her call. The night wore on, and the mask
became so oppressive that it seemed to stifle her.

"I can not stand it," she exclaimed at last, springing out of bed. "I
can not! I shall smother."

She reached up to tear off the bandages that bound the suffocating thing
on, but paused in the act.

"I