Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/210

206 after a day's shooting he could not have looked more guilty.

Without a word Spottswood went back to his dinner.

"Hurry up, honey, baby! Yo' dinner am ready an' waitin' an' Miss Myra an' Miss Evelyn air lookin' moughty stiff backed," Aunt Testy called from the porch in a sibilant whisper. "Run take off yo' bonnet, chil', an' smoove yo' har."

Rebecca raced to her room, intent on propitiating the aunts. It was too bad to be late to dinner on the very day that she had planned to be so virtuous. She untied the strings and tried to take off her bonnet, but Aunt Pearly Gates' device was working to perfection. There was no removing the bonnet without first unplaiting the rope of hair. She made a desperate attempt to untie the piece of yarn with which the end of her braid was fastened, but the curly tendrils of her hair had wrapped themselves around the yarn and remove it she could not. Her fingers seemed to be all thumbs and she fumbled desperately. Grabbing up the scissors, she cut off the end. Surely, the unplaiting would not be so difficult now! But it would not undo, no matter how hard she tried. Rolling on the ground with Doctor had put tangles in the