The foregoing episode, if narrated¹ in a romance, would undoubtedly² have been called “The Saving of the Colors,” but at the nightly conversazione in Watson's store it was alluded³ to as the way little Becky Randall got the flag away from Slippery Simpson.

 

Dramatic as it was, it passed into the limbo⁴ of half-forgotten things in Rebecca's mind, its brief importance submerged in the glories of the next day.

 

There was a painful prelude⁵ to these glories. Alice Robinson came to spend the night with Rebecca, and when the bedroom door closed upon the two girls, Alice announced here intention of “doing up” Rebecca's front hair in leads and rags, and braiding the back in six tight, wetted braids.

 

Rebecca demurred⁶. Alice persisted.

 

“Your hair is so long and thick and dark and straight,” she said, “that you'll look like an Injun!”

 

“I am the State of Maine; it all belonged to the Indians once,” Rebecca remarked gloomily, for she was curiously⁷ shy about discussing her personal appearance.

 

“And your wreath of little pine-cones won't set decent without crimps,” continued Alice.

 

Rebecca glanced in the cracked looking-glass and met what she considered an accusing lack of beauty, a sight that always either saddened or enraged⁸ her according to circumstances; then she sat down resignedly and began to help Alice in the philanthropic work of making the State of Maine fit to be seen at the raising.

 

Neither of the girls was an expert hairdresser, and at the end of an hour, when the sixth braid was tied, and Rebecca had given one last

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