It was fascinating to watch her do her hair. She would take out four or five hairpins from it, shake her head till the hair fell soft to her shoulders, brush the shining mass hastily a minute, twist it up, and stick the four or five hairpins back again, hardly looking into the mirror at all.

Laurel had thought Mrs. Morrison lovely to look at the first time she saw her a year ago, at the hotel, but ladies were often lovely to look at when they were dressed up. The amazing thing about Mrs. Morrison was that she was lovely to look at always, even in the early morning, even before she got up! She wasn’t young. At least Laurel didn’t think she was young. She was old enough to be Con’s mother, and Con was older than Laurel. There were besides just a few gray hairs. You didn’t see them till she let her hair down.

She had beautiful hair—dark, almost black. At night beneath the strong light of the silk-shaded lamp by the piano, it was like the breast of a dark-feathered pigeon in the sunshine—iridescent. She had long slender fingers—very white, and long slender arms, and a long slender neck. The line of her neck in profile had just the same curve from her throat to the tip of her chin (which was usually lifted) as the lady’s in the moon. And she did her hair low, just like the lady in the moon, and fluffed it the same way, too, about her brow and ears, for she wore no net. She was like moonlight in lots of ways, Laurel concluded. Almost no color at all in her cheeks. And the dress she wore the first evening was pale yellow. And she didn’t wear a single ornament to brighten it up.

Occupying the same room with Mrs. Morrison, it took much less time than otherwise for Laurel’s shyness to wear away. Perhaps Mrs. Morrison was aware with what amazing rapidity the homely processes of dressing build up an intimacy. But, whether or not her motive was to win her way into Laurel’s confidence the more quickly, or simply to take every precaution in guarding the child against homesickness, twice the number of hours spent in the drawing-room or garden would not have been sufficient to establish the degree of familiarity which made it possible for Laurel to put into words many of her questions and wonderings before she had been three days a guest of Mrs. Morrison.

“Have you a permanent?” she asked bluntly the third morning as she sat gazing at Mrs. Morrison, seated before the altar-like dressing table with nothing on it but two candlesticks and an old silver box, and four or five tortoise-shell hairpins.

“Yes,” Mrs. Morrison replied, smiling, “but not the kind you mean. I was born with mine.”