gh
the flat, brown bands of her sister's hair.

"A neat pompadour, with an empire knot, would make an up-to-date
etching of you."

Then she caught her by the shoulder and pulled her up in front of a
mirror, snuggling her own face down beside Elvira's. "Look there--I've
a mind to pinch you; you're three years older than I. What do you mean
by looking at least eight younger, and just like a big peach, at
that--hey?"

"Maybe it's because I don't frazzle up years of good vitality over
little everyday snarls," Elvira replied, serenely, but added, more
meekly, "I've been very near to it lately, though, with Eulalie and
her young men."

"Eulalie--yes; she ought to be cuffed a time or two; I know her. Look
here, Elv, you've simply got to let me fix you a pompadour and have
your seams made straight. You'd have a presence to eclipse us all if
you'd spunk up to your dressmaker and not let her put off crooked
gores on you. I'm going to fix you."

"I thought I came here to nurse you."

"Oh, well, you can coddle me sometimes, when I think I'm getting
yellow and peaked. But it's a whole lot of potions and powders just to
have you here. All the same, I had another little nail to drive in
importing you. I've got an old boy picked out--the baron we call him.
He's a worthy soul--upright and straight walking as you please, so it
needn't be any obstacle to you that he owns a whole bunch of mills a
few miles out. He isn't here now, but soon will be, looking after the
mills, and you've got to see him. He's quite a bit older than you, but
that's no odds. His name is Courtenay----"

"Erastus?"

"How did you come by it so glibly?"

"One of Eulalie's planets has an uncle named that. He brought him to
the house a few times, to brighten up my desert island."

"Oh, sweet innocence! So you know him! Then the romance is already cut
and basted."

"There isn't a rag of romance about it. Mr. Courtenay hasn't tendered
me his heart and his mills; I should not take them if he did so.
Besides, I have a glimmer that Eulalie has her eye upon him."

"Did you ever know of a breathing man Eulalie did not have her eye
upon?"

"Barring tramps, not one. Still, Mr. Courtenay might distance the
field. Besides, again, Mr. Griswold says he--the uncle--vowed long ago
to remain forever true to the memory of his first wife."

"Yes," reflected Hazel, "that is so final! But you'll let me pompadour
your hair?"

"Oh, I don't care--if you don't pomp it too