, grew breathless and red. ''There
now, you little brute!'' she said at last. ''Why, what a great lot of hair you have,
I can barely close my hand around it!'' She held the black locks high, and the
reception-matron stepped to study them, and then to rub a tress or two
beneath her fingers. ''Such a fine bit of hair!'' she said admiringly. ''Real
Spanish hair, they call that. We must have a thread, Miss Manning, to
put about it. That will make a handsome hairpiece, that will.'' She turned
to the girl—''Don''t you look so fierce! We''ll see how glad you are to have
your old hair back, six years from now!'' Miss Manning brought a string, the
hair was fastened, and the girl returned to her place upon the bench. Her
neck showed red where the scissors had caught it. I sat through all this,
feeling increasingly awkward and strange, the women occasionally
sending sly, fearful glances my way, as if they wondered what terrible role I
was to play in their incarceration—once, when the gipsy girl struggled, Miss
Ridley said, ''For shame, with the Lady Visitor watching! She shan''t be
visiting you, now she''s seen your temper!'' When the hair-cutting was
completed and she had stepped aside to wipe her hands upon a cloth, I went
to her and asked her, quietly, what was to happen to the women now? She
answered in her usual tone that they would undress themselves, then be taken