"Really, you girls choose the oddest time to visit!" Janet said the next
morning after breakfast.
Gladys sneezed. "Don't rub it in," she begged; "it's bad enough as it
is. I do think though, that when we took all that trouble to give you a
real ghost, and I make an excellent ghost, if I do say so, that the
least you could have done was to play up to it."
"Phyl did," Prue looked reproachfully at Janet. "Will you please tell me
whatever made you think of opening that door?"
"She was going to call for help," Ann suggested.
Janet smiled a superior smile. "Hardly. I knew, of course, that it was a
joke, and I rather suspected whose. I knew there was only one of you on
the balcony, but I knew the other two would not be far off, so I tried
the door, with what results, you already know."
"Jan Page, I am perfectly willing to take my medicine, but I will not be
gloated over."
Gladys made a dive for Janet, and they rolled together in a
rough-and-tumble fight.
In the midst of it Poppy came in.
"What are you two young ones up to?" she demanded. "Do stop, or you'll
hurt yourselves and not be fit for the tableaux."
"We've decided about the one for the little lady that fell off the
balcony," Gwen began. "We're going to have it in two scenes."
The girls could hardly keep their faces straight as they listened.
"Is Glad going to be the pretty lady?" Janet inquired innocently.
"No, we thought we'd use you and Phyl for that," Gwen went on with her
explanation.
They discussed and changed their plans many days before Thanksgiving Day
arrived, but when it did come, a little over a week later, it found them
ready.
The rest of the school, when Poppy had told them of the scheme, had
heartily endorsed it, and Thanksgiving morning found them all busy.
Some were fixing the ballroom with bows of evergreens, and some were
busy preparing the refreshments. The girls who were interested in the
Dramatic Club were taking care of the stage.
They had ransacked the old barn, where the scenery from year to year was
stored, with a happy result. They had found a balcony that rather
resembled a pulpit, a woodland back drop for the Countess to pose
against as she had in the miniature, and an old spinnet for a famous
composer.
The actors themselves were not allowed to do anything, for fear of
tiring them, and no famous actress could have been taken more care of,
than was Daphne.
The new wing had been a little difficult at first, for the suggestion
had come from the old wing, and they were jealous, but the Seniors had
smoothed things over, and when the day came it found them all united.
Church took up most of the morning. It was a long walk to the little
building set in a clump of protecting pines, where the school
worshipped. The sermon was long, and it was not until after one o'clock
that they reached Hilltop.
Luncheon was spread informally on the two long service tables, and the
girls helped themselves. Dinner was to be at six o'clock, so that there
would be plenty of time afterwards for the final preparations.
Miss Hull had been invited to come to the ballroom at eight o'clock, but
apart from that, she had no idea what was going to happen. The girls had
all kept it a profound secret, and only Miss Slocum of the faculty knew
the plans.
"Daphne, darling, please don't stuff so," Janet implored in an agonized
whisper behind Miss Jenks's back. "If you eat another mouthful, you will
never be able to get into that bodice this evening."
"More secrets," Miss Jenks laughed. "It's a good thing we won't have to
wait much longer, for I couldn't stand it."
"Neither could I," Miss Remsted agreed. "I can't remember ever being so
curious or so excited."
"Tell us who's idea it was anyway?" Miss Jenks begged.
"It was a combination," Prue exclaimed. "Sally started it, and Glad
finished it."
"What a truly wonderful combination!" Miss Remsted said smiling.
"I'm very proud of our table," Miss Jenks added.
The girls looked at Daphne, and the Twins and winked at each other.
Their favorite teachers would have more cause to be proud later in the
day.
After luncheon the entire school plunged into a whirl of work that
lasted until time to dress for dinner.
"Best clothes, mind," Poppy had warned the girls; "white if you have it,
Miss Hull loves to see the whole school in white."
The girls nodded, and hurried to their rooms, to appear a half-hour
later in filmy white dresses, their hair tied by pink and blue bows.
"You look like a lot of dainty butterflies," Miss Hull told them
delighted at the pretty picture they made. "I appreciate your wearing
white, for I am sure you did it to please me. But I mustn't talk any
longer, we have still that surprise ahead of us and it would never do to
delay it."
They took their seats and there followed a meal of the kind one reads
about in books--a typical southern dinner.
At every girl's place there was a dainty place card. Miss Remsted had
painted them all, and every one was a little joke in itself. The Twins
had green pods with two little peas in each, and written above it was
"alike as."
Sally had a green poll-parrot with "My Aunt Jane's" written in front of
it. Daphne's read, "I excel with" and then a bow and arrow.
The tables were all decorated with baskets of fruit and nuts, and the
snowy linen and shining silver gave the beautiful old hall a splendid
aspect.
Everybody was very merry and happy. The old darkies who had waited on
the tables at Hilltop since it started were immaculate and grinning in
white aprons and red bandanas.
"And now for the surprise," Miss Jenks said as they left the table after
the nuts and fruit.
The girls hurried upstairs. Gwen came into the Twins's room to help
them, and Poppy stayed with Sally and Daphne.
At last everything was ready. The stage was set for the first tableaux,
and the lights in the ballroom were out.
The curtain rose slowly to discover Sally, dressed as a boy in a velvet
suit, a broad, white lace collar and shoes with big buckles. She was
posed on a rock with the woodland screen behind her, and she looked so
like the first owner of Hilltop, whose painting hung in the library,
that Miss Hull and the rest of the faculty gasped.
The next picture was a copy of another painting,--Ann and Prue, dressed
in long, very full skirts that showed frilled pantelets beneath them,
stood side by side before a tiny grave. They were "Delia and Constance
Hull beside the grave of their favorite spaniel."
Prue was kneeling on a tack in the green denim floor cover, and her knee
was so paralyzed after the curtain fell for the third time, that Sally
had to lift her up. She limped for a week.
The Twins came next in two scenes from The Haunted Balcony. In the
first, Phyllis, dressed in a soft white robe, sat with her chin cupped
in her hands and her eyes looked out toward the rising sun. At the back
of the stage behind a net curtain, to give the effect of a vision, were
Gladys and Janet. They wore black satin knee breeches and white shirts,
open at the throat. They held old pearl-handled duelling pistols pointed
at each other's hearts.
The curtain fell, to rise again on the sad scene of the poor demented
lady, about to throw herself from the balcony. Attendants were carrying
in the crumpled body of her lover. Gladys looked very dead, while her
brother stalked behind, his arms folded, a smile of triumph on his
youthful face. Gwen was imposing as the old doctor carrying a very
dilapidated bag.
The next illustrated the story of Mrs. Fanmore Hull's bravery. Poppy was
seated before a spinning wheel, in a soft gray dress and cap and
kerchief. At the door three villainous looking bandits peered in at her.
One had a patch over his eye and they all looked very rakish.
Mrs. Hull went on spinning for a minute or two, and then she rose with
dignity and grace. She approached the robbers, and just as she reached
the door she picked up the thin apron she was wearing and as one would
scare the chickens off the grass, she said, "shoo!" The robbers
disappeared.
Everybody laughed, for they knew the old story, and Miss Hull clapped
delightedly.
The next was the famous Countess de Camier. Daphne in all her radiant
loveliness was so like the miniature of the Countess, kept carefully in
a locked case in the library, that Miss Hull was stunned. Like her
charming model, Daphne wore a quaint shepherdess dress, that spread
about her dainty slippered feet in soft billows. Her hat was a white
leghorn with just a flat bow of blue velvet on top, but a mass of tiny
forget-me-nots snuggled beneath the brim, against her wonderful hair, at
the back.
She sat on a small, straight-back chair, leaning a little forward, her
lips parted in a haunting little smile, and her eyes bright.
"Oh!" gasped everybody, the girls, the faculty, and Miss Hull, and then
held their breaths, fearful lest the curtain drop and shut out the
lovely picture.
At last it dropped slowly only to rise again and again.
"What a beautiful Juliet she would make!" Miss Hull said, and Miss
Slocum nodded.
The last picture was hardly worth showing. Helen Jenkins, dressed in
man's clothes, sat at the spinnet and tried to look as though she were
composing a masterpiece, but everybody was too full of Daphne to look at
her.
The curtain dropped, the lights came on, and the girls came from behind
the scenes in their costumes to join in the dance that followed. Phyllis
and Daphne made a beautiful picture as they walked arm in arm through
the room, for Phyllis, with her hair over her shoulders and the soft
ivory folds of her robe falling about her graceful body was very
beautiful. They were almost rivalled in loveliness by Sally and Janet,
for they made dashing boys and they swaggered about in fine style.
Miss Hull's usually remote disposition was touched by the nature of the
surprise. She loved the history of her house, and she was delighted to
see the genuine feeling the girls put into their impersonations, and she
did not stint her praise as she said good night to each girl in turn.
It was a sleepy but very happy school that sought their beds as the
grandfather clocks throughout the house struck eleven.
"I told you it wouldn't be hard to stay here for the hols, and it hasn't
been, has it?"
"Certainly not."
"How about the trip to New York, Prus?"
"Oh, bother New York!" Prue replied, and the evening ended as the day
had begun, with laughter.