Page:Anna Chapin--Half a dozen boys.djvu/209

Rh pins that usually held it in place, two were missing, and of course they were the more  critical ones.

“It is that wretch of a Rob!” she thought. “Well, fortunately, it all grows on. But what can I do?”

Warned by the increasing looseness that any attempt to move from the room would result in  a general ruin, she sat as motionless as possible,  while she tried to talk away as if nothing were  amiss. Her guests were watching the impending catastrophe, the older man, who had a wife and sisters of his own, with sympathy, and the  younger one with unmixed amusement.

“How I wish they would go home!” meditated Bess, as she smiled brightly in answer to some sally of Mr. Muir. “Time is precious, for this won’t hold five minutes longer, and the  least move I make will bring it all down.”

And at the moment, the last pin slipped from its place, and a mass of bright, wavy hair fell  on the girl’s shoulders. It was a trying moment, but, determined to make the best of a  bad matter, she said,—

“I shall have to be excused for a moment.