Browning's Golden-Haired Girl

You remember the story that Browning tells in one of his poems concerning a young girl who was reputed to be a person of beautiful character. She had long golden hair of which she was very proud. As she lay dying she expressed the wish that no one should cut her hair, and that it should be dressed after her death in the way she herself indicated.

She arranged her hair about her shoulders with great care, and extracted the promise from those around her that she should be laid in the tomb with her hair untouched; and she was. And everybody mourned the death of this sweet and beautiful girl, and people talked in succeeding centuries of canonizing her. And then one day the body was taken away from the sepulchre in which it had been buried, and they found in her hair a number of gold coins.

And the interpretation that Browning gives to the incident is that the girl, with all her seeming beauty of character, was greedy at heart; she wanted to take her money with her; she could not bear the thought that anyone else should profit by her death. So she hid the gold coins beneath her golden tresses, and cherished them to the end.