Dominie Dean by Ellis Parker Butler

LUCILLE HARDCOME'S defeat, unimportant as it was to the world at large, made her furiously angry for a few days. She would have left the church to go to the Episcopalians if it had not been that the Episcopalian Church in Riverbank was direly poverty-stricken. Lucille sulked for a few days and let the report go out that she was ill, and then appeared with her hair, which had been golden, a glorious shade of red. She said it was Titian. It was immensely becoming to her. Had any other woman in the congregation dared to change the color of her hair thus flauntingly there would have been little less than a scandal. That her first hair vagary created little adverse comment shows how completely Lucille had impressed us with the idea that she was extra-privileged. Later she changed the color of her hair as the whim seized her, varying from red to gold.

In addition to the change in the color of her hair Lucille came out of her brief retirement with an entirely changed opinion of David Dean. She seemed suddenly aware that, far from being a mere church accessory, he was someone worth while. She began to court his good opinion openly. Having burned her fingers she admired the fire.