REFRESHMENTS
As soon as the carriage stopped, the Court Crier opened the door and
he and the Admiral handed out the two little girls. At the same moment
there came running down the steps two rosy-cheeked young women in caps
and aprons, white cuffs and turn-down collars, like trained nurses, who
courtesied very nicely and said:
"If you will please to come with us, Ladies, we will show you to the
refreshment room."
Walking up the steps behind the two little maids, Margaret and Frances
were shown into a large, pleasant room, furnished in green and white,
with sofas and rocking chairs and everything they could want. Looking
about them, the first thing they noticed was a card tacked on the
inside of the door, such as they remembered to have seen once in a
hotel bedroom, and supposing it to be the rules of the palace, they
thought they had better read it. It was not the rules of the palace,
but it was something just as important, as Margaret soon discovered,
when, pulling forward a chair, she sat down to read it--for the card,
being put there for the accommodation of small people like the Floating
Islanders, was rather low down on the door.
"What does it say?" asked Frances. "Can you read it?"
"Oh, yes," replied her sister. "This is what it says,"--pointing out
each word with her finger as she read it:
"'Laws of the Floating Islands.
(1) Be Cheerful.
(2) Be Polite.
Anyone Disobeying These Laws
Will Be
Put In The Corner
And
Painted Blue.'"
"Oh! So _that's_ why nobody dresses in blue!" cried Frances. "I thought
there must be some reason."
"Yes; and what a good thing it was we wore our pink dresses and
flowered hair-ribbons today. Well, it is easy enough to learn these
laws:--'Be cheerful. Be polite'. I know them already. What is this up
here?"
All down one side of the doorway were a number of electric buttons,
marked, 'Ice-cream', 'Cookies', 'Candy', 'Oranges', 'Bananas', and so
forth, and at the bottom, showing how thoughtful the King was, 'Pepsin'.
"I suppose," said Frances, "if you want any of these things you just
press the button. Do you think Mother would let us have a cooky. I'm
rather hungry."
"I'm sure she would," replied her elder sister. "And I should like
something to drink, too. See! Here are the things to drink on the other
door post: 'Lemonade', 'Sherbet', and a lot of other things. What
should we ask for? Lemonade?"
"Lemonade is good," remarked Frances. "What else is there?"
"Here's 'Aërated water'," Margaret spelled out. "Would you like that?"
"No," replied Frances. "That's that fizzy stuff. I like it, but it
tickles my nose so. I don't think I want that. What's next?"
"'Plain water'," read Margaret.
"Oh, no. We can get plain water at home."
"'Aëro-plane water'" read Margaret. "I wonder what that is."
"I expect it's not so plain as plain water, and not so fizzy as fizzy
water," replied Frances. "I think I should like to try it. Suppose you
ask for a lemonade and I'll ask for an aëro-plane water, and then we
can divide."
"Very well. Then I'll press these two buttons and you press the one
marked 'Cookies.'"
They pressed the buttons accordingly, when, almost in no time, it
seemed, they heard something go _snick_, and turning in that direction
they saw that a little cupboard door in the wall had flown open.
Inside the cupboard was a tray with a plate of cookies upon it and two
glasses, one, a big glass of lemonade with two straws in it, and the
other, a smaller glass containing what appeared to be plain water with
six round, fat bubbles floating about in it. On the edge of this glass,
hanging by a little hook, was a pair of small tweezers.
"Why! What are they for?" exclaimed Frances, as she unhooked them and
laid them on the tray. "What did they send us tweezers for?"
"I'm sure I don't know," replied her sister. "Perhaps we shall find out
presently. Bring the tray over here, Frances, and put it on this little
table. Ah! This lemonade is good! What does your aëro-plane water taste
like?"
"Why, it doesn't taste like anything," replied Frances, in a tone of
some disappointment. "It's just plain water. They must have forgotten
the 'aëro' part!"
"Perhaps the bubbles are the 'aëro' part," suggested Margaret.
"Oh, perhaps they are. I'll drink one."
But try as she might, she could not catch one of them. Every time she
touched one with her lips it bobbed away--the bubbles were so large and
so round and so slippery.
"The tweezers!" cried Margaret.
"Oh! Of course!" exclaimed Frances. "That's what the tweezers are for!"
Undoubtedly it was, for, with the help of the tweezers, Frances very
soon caught a bubble and popped it into her mouth.
Margaret, watching her, saw her eyes sparkle and a look of pleased
surprise come over her face.
"That tastes, does it?" she asked.
For half a minute Frances did not reply; all she said was, "M-m-m,"
keeping her lips shut tight as though to let none of the taste escape;
but presently she opened her mouth and said:
"Yes, that tastes. It's the very nicest thing I ever did taste:
like--let me see--like pine-apple and strawberry jam and--and--I can't
think what else. Wait till I try another. There are five left. I'll
take two more and leave the rest for you."
So saying, she caught two more bubbles and then passed over the glass
to Margaret, who, in turn, passed over the half-finished lemonade to
her sister. As she did so, she saw an odd expression come over Frances'
face.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"I don't know," replied Frances. "I don't think there's anything the
matter, but I have such a funny feeling--just as if I didn't weigh
anything. I feel as if I wanted to get up and fly."
"Try, then," suggested Margaret. "Perhaps you can if you try. Try."
Frances, rather gingerly, got out of her chair, gave a flap with her
arms and a little stamp with both feet, and up to the ceiling she went
like a feather. It was a high ceiling, but she went up far enough to
touch it with her fingers, when she began gently floating down again,
her dress standing out all around like a pink umbrella. She looked so
comical, with her elbows tucked into her sides and her fingers spread
out, her lips puckered up and her eyebrows raised, that Margaret could
not help laughing.
"Oh, what fun!" she cried, seizing the tweezers and the glass of
aëro-plane water. "I'm coming too. Can you wait there, Frances?"
[Illustration: _Began gently floating down again_]
"No, I can't," replied her sister, who was now down about the level
of the tops of the pictures. "I'm coming down all the time. And if I
were you, Margaret," she added hastily, "I'd only take two of those
bubbles--or one. I'm rather _too_ light. It's a good thing I didn't
take all six of them or I might have gone straight up to the ceiling
and had to stay there, crawling about like a fly. I wonder if--hand me
the lemonade, will you?"
Margaret dragged a chair to the spot, jumped upon it and handed up
the half-glass of lemonade to her sister. Frances, however, did not
take the glass in her hand; she took the straws, and leaning forward,
tried to drink the lemonade. But though Margaret stood on tip-toe and
reached up as far as she could, Frances was still about four inches too
high, so she waited a minute until she had come down a little further
when she tried again. This time she succeeded, finding, as she had
expected, that at every swallow she came down more and more quickly,
until presently her feet touched the floor again, when, as she was
still rather bouncy, she took hold of the edge of the table to steady
herself, and said:
"I'll tell you what you'd better do, Margaret: Take only one of those
bubbles at a time and see if it isn't enough. I'm a good deal too
light; I shall have to put some stones in my pocket, or something. I'm
afraid, if I were to go out of doors, the wind might blow me into the
sea. So just take one first, Margaret, and see how that does."
This seemed like good advice, so Margaret, taking the tweezers, caught
one bubble and ate it up.
"M-m-m," she murmured, just as Frances had done. "That is good. There's
preserved ginger in it, too, and I think there's just a taste of baked
apples. Oh! Isn't it a funny feeling!"--stretching out her arms and
dancing about--"I wonder if I could jump up to the ceiling like you
did."
But she found she could not; though to jump over a big settee in the
middle of the room was the easiest thing possible.
"Oh, how nice it is to be so light-footed!" she cried. "One bubble is
just enough, Frances; that was a good idea of yours. But what are we
going to do to make you a bit heavier? There are no stones here to put
into your pockets; and you have only one pocket, anyhow. You'd be all
lopsided. You'll have to eat something. That's the only way I see."
"Yes," responded Frances, "that's the only way; and what we need is
something heavy, like that little loaf of bread you and I made once
for Daddy, don't you remember, and he begged to be excused, because
home-made bread sometimes gave him the nightmare, and so we gave it to
Kim--that time he howled so in the night, and Daddy had to get up and
throw his hair-brush at him."
"Yes, I remember," replied her sister. "That's the sort of thing we
want. Let's look at the list here and see if there's anything likely to
do. Ah! 'Pound cake'! That ought to be just the thing."
"Pound cake is rather rich, isn't it?" asked Frances.
"I'm afraid it is. Well, here's 'Half-pound cake, for infants and
invalids.' The very thing. We'll have that."
She touched the button; open flew the cupboard, and there inside it was
a neat little cake with a silver knife to cut it.
"Now," said Margaret, cutting a slice and handing it to her sister.
"Eat that and see if it will do."
Still holding to the table for fear she should bob up again to the
ceiling unexpectedly, Frances ate about half the slice, when she laid
down the rest, remarking:
"I think that's enough, Margaret. I don't feel quite so much like a
dandelion seed as I did. Take my hand and let us skip down the room
and back, just to try."
Down the room they skipped, hand in hand, and back again, jumping over
the settee on the way and coming lightly down on the carpet, "Like a
pair of soap-bubbles," as Frances put it.
"Just exactly," Margaret agreed. "I feel like you feel in a dream
sometimes, when you just tap your foot on the floor or your fingers on
the backs of the chairs and go floating about the room. How glad I am
you asked for aëro-plane water, Frances, or we might never--Come in!"
Somebody had tapped at the door, and on Margaret's calling, "Come in,"
the two little maids appeared once more, courtesying politely, to
inquire if the ladies were ready to put on their wreaths and slippers.
"Wreaths!" cried Margaret.
"Slippers!" cried Frances. "We didn't bring any wreaths and slippers."
At this, one of the little maids, whose name, they found, was Anita,
smiled and nodded, and going to a cupboard in the wall which the
children had not noticed before, she came back with two cardboard
boxes, one of which she handed to each little girl.
"Are we to open them?" asked Margaret.
"If you please, Miss," replied Anita.
Each box proved to contain a beautiful wreath made of enameled pink
leaves with silver berries--both exactly alike.
"Oh! Aren't they pretty!" exclaimed Frances. "Are we to wear them?"
"Yes, Miss, if you please," replied the little waiting-maid. "All
the court ladies wear wreaths and slippers to match. These are your
slippers," running to the cupboard and bringing back two pairs of white
satin slippers with big pink rosettes on them. "The King hopes you'll
like them."
"The King is very kind," replied Margaret. "Yes, these will do
beautifully."
"Then, if Your Ladyships are ready, will you please to follow us?"
So saying, Anita threw open the door, when she and the other little
maid, taking hands, went skipping off down a wide hallway, Margaret and
Frances skipping after them and poor little Periwinkle with a serious
countenance galloping behind, until they arrived at the top of a long
flight of steps down which they went, six steps at a time, to find the
Admiral and the Court Crier waiting for them.
"Quite ready, Ladies?" asked the Admiral. "Then we'll join the
garden-party at once."