"If you would like, I"ll take the part," Cynthia Vaughn suggested. "I"ve all that canton flannel ermine, and the ruff made out of the old window curtains, which I wore when I was Queen Elizabeth."
"That ruff would be a frightful anachronism," said Emma Jane Anton.
"And the ermine has served three times already. Thank you, we"ll manage somehow," Witch Winnie a.s.serted, confidently.
We retired to the Amen Corner to talk it over. "If worse comes to worst," said Witch Winnie, "I know I can make a magnificent train out of the plush table-cloth in Madame"s library."
"But how will you ever get it?"
"Emma Jane must ask her to lend it to us; she"ll do anything for Emma Jane."
"Emma Jane declines to act in this emergency," said Miss Anton, firmly.
"You wouldn"t be so mean!"
"But I would; Adelaide, please read Milly"s letter again; I didn"t half hear it."
"I must have dropped it in the Society hall; I will get it after dinner.
If she had thought that Tib might be chosen to take her place, she would have done anything for the honor of the Amen Corner."
Here some one tapped at the door, and announced, "A letter for Miss Armstrong."
"It"s from Milly!" exclaimed Adelaide, "and it looks as if it had been opened, and pasted up again."
"I thought Madame boasted that she never submitted her young ladies to that sort of espionage," said Witch Winnie.
"Girls, girls!" Adelaide fairly shrieked; "just listen to this! Milly writes--
""I forgot to say in my last that mamma"s maid is putting the finishing touches to my costume, and Gibson will bring it around to-morrow. The dress (purple velvet) is one which mamma wore last summer when she was presented to the Queen. The lace which trims it was made to order from a pattern of her own selection in Brussels.
You may keep the crown, for the gems in it are only Rhinestones.
Aunt f.a.n.n.y wore it at a costume ball, and they sparkle like the real thing. Be careful of the lace, for mamma prizes it highly.
"Yours, Milly.
"P. S.--I"ve coaxed papa to lend you a silver chatelaine, old French repousse, linked with emeralds, which he keeps in his cabinet of curiosities. It shows finely against the velvet.""
How we all exclaimed and chattered! "Now what will the Hornets" Nest say to that?"
"Canton flannel ermine indeed!"
"I should like to see them bring on their old mosquito-netting ruff!"
"Real emeralds! A diadem flashing with diamonds!"
"Don"t tell them a word about it until Tib dawns on them in all her glory on Wednesday night."
It was hard to keep this resolution, but we did. The Hornets were giggling and whispering among themselves as we marched in to dinner, with all the importance given by the possession of a state secret. The other girls relapsed into silence as we took our seats, and watched us with strange, significant looks.
"I"ve been looking up the matter in Racinet"s work on Costume," remarked Cynthia Vaughn, "and I find you were right, Miss Anton; ruffs did not come in until long after Arthur"s reign."
"I would like to consult the book," Emma Jane replied, "unless you can tell me whether chatelaines were worn at that period."
Here a small Hornet was seized with strangulation, and had to be vigorously thumped upon the back by her friends.
"Oh, I think so," Cynthia replied, sweetly, disregarding her friend"s condition. "Wouldn"t it be sweet to have Guinevere wear one? Miss Smith is so artistic, I"m sure she could cut one out of gilt paper."
Adelaide scouted the idea. "Whatever we get up for that costume," she said, "I am determined shall be _real_, no _imitation_ chatelaines, or anything else."
Cynthia lifted her eyebrows. "Perhaps you will secure one of Queen Victoria"s court robes?" she remarked, icily.
It was on Adelaide"s lips to reply that we might have a robe which had figured at a court reception of the English Queen, but she felt Witch Winnie"s foot upon hers, and replied that in undertaking this tableau the Amen Corner felt confident that they could carry it through creditably, and we therefore begged to be excused from the dress rehearsal that afternoon. We left the dining-room in a body, and the Hornets laughed aloud before we closed the door. ""They laugh best who laugh last,"" said Witch Winnie. "Won"t those girls fairly expire when they see Tib in her grand role!"
Tuesday was a long and weary day for us. We started at every knock, expecting a summons to the janitor"s room to receive a package, but none came. We retired much disappointed; and we held a council of war before breakfast. The Roseveldts" butler had evidently proved false to his trust, and the costume was waiting for us at the family mansion on Fifth Avenue.
"I will ask Madame at breakfast to excuse me from my morning lessons to do an important errand," said Witch Winnie; "I will tell her the entire story, and I know that, rather than disappoint us all, she will let us go to the Roseveldts" for the things."
Madame proved to be in good-humor, and on reading Milly"s letter readily gave Winnie and me the desired permission, sending for a hansom to take us to our destination. All of the Hornets at the lower end of the table heard this conversation, and Adelaide thought that Cynthia Vaughn turned green with envy. An hour later, as we came down the front stairs to take our hansom, Cerberus popped his head from his office to tell us that a package had just been received for Miss Adelaide Armstrong. "Come back, girls!" Adelaide cried excitedly; "here is the costume. It can be nothing else. My, what a big bundle!"
We carried it between us in triumph up the staircase. The Hornets were cl.u.s.tered on the very top landing; their faces peered over the bal.u.s.trade, and as they caught sight of our procession a peal of derisive laughter echoed through the hall as they scuttled away to their nest under the eaves.
"Those Hornets have certainly gone crazy," Emma Jane remarked, practically. She was carrying her corner of the package, and was as interested as the rest of us in the arrival of the costume. We entered our study-parlor in suppressed excitement, and impatiently cut the knots, and tore open the wrappings, when, behold! another package, scrupulously tied. This paper removed revealed another, then another, and another, and the fact slowly dawned upon us that we had been victimized. "Girls!" exclaimed Witch Winnie, sitting down on the floor in despair, "it"s a wicked sell of those Hornets: there is nothing here."
Emma Jane Anton kept on methodically removing the wrappers and folding them neatly. "Perhaps," suggested Adelaide, "they have merely arranged this hoax to fool us, and the costume is still at the Roseveldts"."
"It"s just like that Cynthia Vaughn to do such a thing; we"ll go, all the same," Witch Winnie replied, rising hopefully and tying on her veil.
At this juncture Emma Jane reached a pasteboard box marked "Violet velvet court dress." Lifting the lid discovered a quant.i.ty of trash. An empty sardine-box bore the label "Diamond Crown;" a dilapidated bustle was marked "Brussels point lace;" a mixed-pickle bottle was filled with apple-parings and labeled "Old repousse chatelaine, reign of Arthur I.; the _real_ article; must be returned."
A howl of mingled laughter and dismay rose from our corner. "Cynthia Vaughn wrote that letter which purported to be from Milly. Well, it"s a real good practical joke, anyway," said Witch Winnie; "better than I thought the Hornets could get up without my help. Let us show them that we can take a joke, and good-naturedly acknowledge ourselves sold."
"And in the mean time what am I to do for a costume? You know the tableaux come off to-night."
"That puts another face on the matter."
"I suppose Cynthia would be only too glad to take the part even now."
"After all we have said, and your name printed on the programme--never!"
This from Adelaide.
"I"ll tell you what we will do," suggested Winnie; "the hansom is still waiting at the door; Tib and I will drive to a costumer"s and hire something. I found the address of a place on the Bowery the other day and fortunately saved it. Hold your heads up high; we will not acknowledge ourselves defeated yet."
As Witch Winnie and I sped out of the quiet square and down the great teeming thoroughfare, the Elevated trains jarring overhead and the motley crowd surging about us, a misgiving of conscience swept over me.
What would Madame say? This was not what we had obtained permission to do. This was very different from Fifth Avenue, and not at all a quarter of the city in which young ladies should be wandering without chaperons.
We were quite desperate, however, and it seemed too late to turn back.
The hansom stopped before a Hebrew misfit clothing store where dress suits were announced as on hire by the evening. Flaunting placards above told that costumes for the theatrical profession and for fancy b.a.l.l.s were to be let in the fourth story. We climbed a dirty staircase, and after knocking by mistake at an intelligence office for _Dienst Madchen_, a hair-dyeing and complexion-enameling rooms, a chiropodist"s, and a clairvoyant"s, we found ourselves in a room piled from floor to ceiling with costumes. A fat German, who looked as if he were some second-hand piece of furniture, very much soiled as to his linen, and the worse for wear as to his physical mechanism, admitted us and did the honors of the establishment. I glanced around at the motley objects which filled the wareroom; gaudy spangled dresses, with a sprinkle of saw-dust (suggestive of the arena) clinging to the worn cotton velvet, many-ruffled shockingly brief skirts of rose-colored gauze that had spun like so many teetotums behind flaring foot-lights, tinfoil suits of armor that had come in all mud-besplashed from parading the streets at the last grand procession, the faded banners which flapped above them so jauntily, drooping wearily now from the rafters, covered with dust and festooned by the spiders. A row of dominoes dependent from a neighboring clothes-line rustled with an air of mystery, and a heap of masks upon the floor seemed to leer and wink from their eyeless windows.
"I am afraid," said Winnie, drawing nearer the door, "that you haven"t anything so nice as I want."