It is an acquired taste." "When I do acquire it, I'll be equal to any of them," replied Aunt Maria.

"When I lose my temper, they had better look out." Harry Edgham laughed again.
It was the next morning when Aunt Maria appeared at the early breakfast with a pompadour.

Her thin frizzes were carefully puffed over a mystery which she had purchased the afternoon before.
Maria, when she first saw her aunt, stared open-mouthed; then she ate her breakfast as if she had seen nothing.
Harry Edgham gave one sharp stare at his sister-in-law, then he said: "Got your hair done up a new way, haven't you, Maria ?" "Yes, my hat didn't set well on my head with my hair the way I was wearing it," replied Aunt Maria with dignity; still she blushed.

She knew that her own hair did not entirely conceal the under structure, and she knew, too, why she wore the pompadour.
Harry Edgham recognized the first fact with simple pity that his sister-in-law's hair was so thin.

He remembered hearing a hair-tonic recommended by another man in the office, and he wondered privately if Maria would feel hurt if he brought some for her.