Polly sprang to her assistance.
"Wait a minute, and I'll get you out," she said.
"And I won't wait," cried Alexia loudly; "it's bad enough to be hooked to
death with a horrid old ugly waist, without being scolded to pieces by your
aunt."
"Oh, Alexia!" exclaimed Miss Rhys, "to call that beautiful waist an ugly
thing!"
"And I'll pull every spear of hair out of my head, but I'll get the thing
off. Ow!"--as she began to put her threat into execution.
"Do be still, Alexia," begged Polly, trying to push aside the nervous
fingers.
"I won't be still," cried Alexia, casting up a pale eye full of wrath on
the side next to Polly, and giving another twitch. "I guess if you'd been
hooked up by a horrible old thing, and your aunt came in and scolded you
terribly, you wouldn't wait. Ow! Oh, dear me!"
"Then," said Polly, standing quite still, "since you won't let me help you,
I'm going home, Alexia."
"Oh, don't," cried Alexia, and she dropped her hands to her side in a
flash, the blue silk waist dangling to her head by its hook. "I'll let you
help whatever you want to, Polly," she mumbled meekly.
So Polly set to work, Miss Rhys slipping out of the room. Although Alexia's
nervous fingers were now not in the way, still, it wasn't easy to
disentangle the hook from the thick, fluffy hair, wound in as it was.
"You've tangled it all up," said Polly, bending over it with flushed face,
her fingers working busily, "and it's all in a snarl.
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