THE SHROVE NIGHT MASQUE
“Shall you be ready to meet Shakespeare when he comes here on Tuesday
night, Beth?” asked Mr. Cortlandt unexpectedly, emerging from behind
his morning paper. “It is the custom of some people to ‘get up’ handy
quotations from an author before meeting him, to have them ready to
use; it’s supposed to please him, but all real authors hate it. If you
like I’ll rehearse the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet and we’ll
act it for Mr. Shakespeare when he comes.”
Beth smiled in a puzzled way, looking inquiringly at her uncle. She
knew there was some clue to the meaning of his nonsense, but she lacked
it.
“I saw an allusion to our ball in the paper, that’s what reminded
me,” Mr. Cortlandt went on. “You look blank, Beth. Is it possible you
haven’t heard of the ball?”
“Mama has been so busy about it we haven’t seen her much lately, and
Natalie and I never thought to tell Beth, because we’re not in it
anyway, so it doesn’t matter,” said Alys.
“Oh, dear me, it matters a lot!” exclaimed her father. “Where’s your
family pride, my dear? The Cortlandt ball is going down in the history
of New York! And I’m not sure you mayn’t see it. I think I’ll put in a
plea to the hostess to make an exception to the rule and let you young
people sit up that night to see the pageant. It will be worth looking
at and one night won’t ruin your budding beauty! I should like to have
Beth see it. We’ll hide you in the gallery, but we’ll costume you
first, so if you are discovered you’ll be in the picture.”
“What is it, Uncle Jim?” asked Beth, as Natalie and Alys clapped their
hands and softly cheered this decision.
“Fancy one’s own niece not knowing what I’m talking about when the
daily papers are eagerly discussing ‘Mr. and Mrs. James Cortlandt’s
Elizabethan ball!’” cried Uncle Jim. “That’s what it is, Bethie--an
Elizabethan Ball. It is to be a masked ball of the period when Bess of
England reigned, and Will Shakespeare was writing and acting at the
Globe Theatre in London, and Sir Walter Raleigh was spreading his cloak
for the queen to pass over the mud dry shod while, at the same time,
he was trying to spread her realm over the sea into our own Virginia.
There’s a royal prince visiting the United States just now, little
niece, whom your aunt and I have met several times; we are giving the
ball in his honor. It will be rather magnificent, we hope. It is to be
a Shrovetide Masque--now doesn’t that sound Elizabethan? Next Tuesday
is the day--Shrove Tuesday. There will be court dancing, gavottes,
minuets, those formal old dances which so well suit the brocades and
farthingales of that period, and there’ll be a play acted without
scenery, right on the ballroom floor among the guests, just as plays
were given in Shakespeare’s day. At midnight we unmask and sup, and end
with modern dancing. You children shall see it; I want you to.”
Beth listened, bewildered, to this amazing explanation in which a real,
live Royal Prince was mingled with ghosts of historical splendor.
“Do you think Aunt Alida will care?” she gasped, hardly knowing what
she said.
“If you sit up to see the ball? Not she, not after a moment. She’ll
never be hard-hearted enough to deny us,” declared Uncle Jim,
identifying his desire with Beth’s in the most satisfactory way.
Aunt Alida did demur for just about the moment which Uncle Jim had
allowed for her to hesitate, when he announced his decision to have
the children see the ball which all New York was discussing. But she
yielded her objections to breaking through her rule of “early to bed
and early to rise” for her young folk, and consented to let them be
hidden in the gallery at the end of the great ballroom to see the
spectacle which would be a lifelong memory of beauty to them.
This meant hurriedly planned costumes for the four. The ball guests
would be sure to invade the ballroom galleries and Aunt Alida did not
intend to allow the smallest blemish in the harmony of this great ball.
When the children were discovered, as they would be, looking on, they
must be found in the costume of the period of the ball, not in their
own twentieth century persons and frocks.
Poor Aunt Alida was dismayed at this additional task unexpectedly
fallen upon her, but Miss Deland came to her rescue.
“Let me attend to the costumes, dear Mrs. Cortlandt,” she said. “I’m
sure I can design them well enough--to be hidden away!”
Mrs. Cortlandt laughed, looking relieved. “You could choose costumes
quite pretty enough to put in the middle of the strongest limelight,
Miss Deland,” she said. “Lessons have been so neglected this winter by
our gadabout Beth that you hardly have had her in the schoolroom enough
to know what she looks like! But you can guess what will be becoming to
her!”
“I know Bethie’s sunny face better than you think I do, and I know how
well she loves English history,” said Miss Deland with a smile for Beth
that made Beth throw her arms around this lovable teacher and give her
one of her impetuous hugs.
“Miss Deland and I are very well acquainted, because I love her dearly,
Aunt Alida,” she said. “And she teaches me a great deal in a few days.
I’ve learned different things from the ones I learn in school at home,
but Miss Deland makes me know so much in an hour that you needn’t think
I’ve lost this winter--studying, I mean.”
“To be truthful, I’m not seriously worried about it, Bethie,” laughed
Aunt Alida. “And it surely ought to be a good way to become well
acquainted with a person to love her dearly! Then I’ll leave it to you,
Miss Deland, to turn the quartette into subjects of Queen Elizabeth,
and you really don’t know how much I appreciate your undertaking it for
me.”
“We must have a solemn consultation, girls and boy!” said Miss Deland,
as Aunt Alida hurried away. “Your gowns must be simple. We can have
them made at home. We’ll get a sempstress in and call upon Anna Mary
and Frieda to help; I can sew, too.”
“If only we could get Miss Tappan! She’s the dressmaker at home,” said
Beth. “She’s really quick, though she looks like some one who would be
dreadfully slow. She goes out by the day; she charges only a dollar
a day to old customers, like Aunt Rebecca. She mightn’t be able to
make Elizabethan dresses, though.” Beth looked doubtful and somewhat
troubled.
“It doesn’t matter, dear, does it? As long as we can’t get Miss
Tappan,” suggested Miss Deland. “The first thing is to decide on
the colors for each of you and then to fly off to the shops to find
materials suitable for our purpose.”
“Please, Miss Deland, I think the very first thing of all is to decide
what we are to be,” said Beth decidedly.
“Oh, that’s settled now,” said Miss Deland. “You are to be young people
of Queen Elizabeth’s time, probably children of some of her courtiers.
It won’t be necessary to decide which ones; you will be smuggled away
in a corner of the gallery.”
“Oh, indeed it is necessary!” implored Beth. “I want to know just
exactly who I am, so I can be part of it. You see, you can’t half see
a thing right if you are part of it and don’t know what part it is.
Mayn’t we decide that first, Miss Deland?”
“I’m sure I don’t care what I am; we’re only going to look on,” said
Alys, puzzled by Beth’s absorbing interest in imaginative things, as
she always was.
“Well, I want to look on right,” persisted Beth.
“I know! You shall be Judith Shakespeare, Beth!” cried Miss Deland,
with an inspiration. “And Dirk shall be Hamnet, ‘Will Shakespeare’s
little lad!’ Natalie shall be Susanna, Shakespeare’s oldest child,
while Alys--well, we will make Alys the Lady Alys Dudley, a relative
of the Earl of Leicester, the favorite of the queen, and pretend she
is entertaining Shakespeare’s young folk during their visit to London.
Will that please you, Beth dear?”
“I’ll love it,” declared Beth briefly, her face illumined. Miss Deland
saw that in an instant she had assumed her rôle and was become the
dutiful, proud daughter of the greatest of poets.
The mere detail of color and design for her costume Beth passed over
lightly, without much interest in it. Not so Natalie and Alys; even
though they were to be concealed from sight they cared a great deal to
have their costumes suit them.
Yellow for Alys, with her blonde hair; blue for Beth and crimson for
Natalie and wine-colored velvet for Dirk were settled upon. Miss
Deland bore the girls off in the Cortlandt car to do the shopping this
entailed.
For four days scissors, needles and sewing-machine gleamed and buzzed.
Miss Deland designed and cut out, Anna Mary and Frieda sewed and
Frieda’s mother was fetched in to help, a competent German woman whose
needle worked fast and skilfully.
Not for nothing had Aunt Rebecca insisted upon Beth’s daily “stint” of
sewing, in the old-fashioned way, bringing up a girl early to use her
needle well. Beth now came out strong in her hated accomplishment and
helped effectually in the hurried work under way. Neither Natalie nor
Alys could sew well enough to count in real work.
“It’s a fine thing, so it is, to know how to sew, Miss Natalie,” said
Anna Mary, biting off her thread, though she would not permit one of
the girls thus to risk breaking the enamel of a tooth. “Sure, if you
know how it doesn’t get in the way of buyin’ your clothes, nor of
hirin’ some one else to sew for you. But when you lose your money, or
happen to be where there’s no buyin’, nor hirin’, it gets sore in your
way not to know how to put a garmient together, nor the top from the
bottom of an unmade sleeve, no, nor a hawk from handsewin’, as the
sayin’ is.”
“‘A hawk from a handsaw,’” murmured Miss Deland in spite of herself,
much amused, yet knowing better than to attempt to correct Anna Mary.
“That’s Shakespeare, Anna Mary! You certainly sew wonderfully well and
wonderfully fast! I don’t know how we ever should have had the costumes
done in time, but for you,” she added hastily, seeing Anna Mary’s brow
darken.
“It would be a poor creature that was lady’s maid as many years as I’ve
been and couldn’t sew, Miss Deland,” said Anna Mary, mollified, but
accepting the compliment as her just due.
When the costumes were finished they were so charming that Aunt Alida
clapped her hands at the sight of the four figures arrayed in them,
declaring that it was a pity to hide such effects in the gallery. They
surprisingly brought out the characteristics of each wearer. Natalie
looked quite grown up in her stiff gown, a magnificent court lady, so
handsome that jealous Queen Elizabeth would never have suffered her
at her court. Alys looked dignified and impressive, but Beth looked
like what she was, a rosy cheeked little girl masquerading, and Dirk
might well have passed for what he represented, the one little son whom
Shakespeare loved and lost.
Shrove Tuesday night came, a warm night for the season. It would have
been the children’s privilege to have seen Mrs. Cortlandt dress, but
Beth refused to go, wishing to keep the coming wonders of the night and
the illusion of Elizabeth’s court to burst upon her in undivided glory,
its illusion perfect. She would not risk seeing one of the maskers
transformed from Aunt Alida into an Elizabethan lady. Since Beth would
not look at their mother till she appeared in the ballroom, the others
would not either.
All four slipped down into the vast ballroom early. The room was
groined and arched, with Corinthian columns supporting its galleries.
It suggested a Greek temple, but a temple devoted to the gods of youth
and joy. Its white and gold was hung with countless lights, wreathed,
grouped, scattered in curves and singly like electric blossoms in a
hanging garden. No plants broke the white lines of the columns and
arches, but garlands of unbelievable orchids fell carelessly from the
balconies, and chains of Killarney roses and ferns stretched from point
to point, filling the air with sweetness. The orchestra was placed
behind the diaphanous golden screen built for it. It was a screen of
white agate, cut into lace-like fragility in designs of ferns and
blossoms, like point lace; the light shone through the agate with a
delicate warmth that made the flowers alive, as if they really were the
white jasmine they represented, blooming in the moonlight. Framing the
screen was a golden fantasy of musical instruments, wrought in metal.
“It looks the way music sounds!” cried Beth rapturously, seeing the
golden screen with its agate carving for the first time illuminated.
At nine o’clock the orchestra began playing softly behind its screen.
Presently a fanfare of trumpets sounded beyond the ballroom, the doors
were thrown open, the orchestra burst into splendid music, which
Beth did not know was one of the Liszt Hungarian rhapsodies, and a
procession began to enter.
First came solemn men in a queer uniform, with staves; these were not
masked. They represented the beef-eaters, the yeomen of the Royal
Guard, who attended upon the sovereign at state banquets.
“Those are just men, hired,” said Dirk, craning his neck eagerly to
see the pageant. “Jolly! If there isn’t Tim marching in with them!
Daddy got him in as a beef-eater! Wait till I get at him to-morrow!”
Next came Mr. Cortlandt, walking alone. He too, being the host, was
unmasked.
“I never knew father was such a peach!” cried Alys, moved beyond
herself by the spectacle of her father in white satin, embroidered in
blues and golds, a blue velvet cloak swinging from one shoulder, a
plumed hat carried jauntily under his left arm. Jewels blazed from his
hands and throat, the clasp of his cloak, his knee and shoe buckles;
the collar of an order hung around his neck and a blazing star of
diamonds fell from it upon his chest.
“He’s just as handsome as he can be!” cried Beth. “All the time, I
mean, but now he’s handsomer than he can be--I mean he doesn’t seem
possible!” She was so excited that Natalie caught her by the arm.
“I’m afraid you’ll jump over the rail,” Natalie laughed, but her own
eyes were flashing and she looked as though she, too, found the pageant
almost too much for her.
Behind Mr. Cortlandt came his guests in pairs, lords and ladies of the
great and magnificent time of English Elizabeth. Such colors, such
brocades and satins, velvets, laces, feathers, fans, shoes, above all
such ropes and suns of jewels Beth had never believed could exist,
outside the stories of Eastern magic.
The five hundred guests came slowly on, stepping to the time of a
minuet which the orchestra was now playing. They were all masked and
the men vied with the women in gorgeousness of raiment and jewels. Each
man held the left hand of his partner in the entering march high in
the air, as in a minuet; with the other hand he clasped his feathered,
jeweled hat and the women with their right hand waved their fans or
toyed with chains of jewels, making them flash anew as they fingered
them.
Then came four especially graceful dames, walking backward.
Natalie pointed out one to Beth. “That’s mama. No one else on earth
could walk backward like that! See how graceful she is; best of them
all!” Natalie’s voice was excited; it thrilled with proud admiration of
her exquisite mother.
Beth arose to see better. Though she was masked Beth felt as sure as
Natalie was that the lady in cloth of gold, with a diamond plume in her
hair and diamonds radiating everywhere from her splendid costume, was
Aunt Alida.
“She is Mary Fitton; she told me, but she said I wasn’t to tell any one
till to-night,” announced Dirk proudly.
“Who is Mary Fitton?” asked Alys.
“I know; Miss Deland and I read about her last week,” cried Beth. “She
was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth, and Shakespeare wrote his
sonnets to her--maybe he did; they aren’t sure. Oh, look, look! There
is the queen! That’s why they are walking backward. She isn’t masked.
Oh, doesn’t she look for all the world like Queen Elizabeth?”
One of Aunt Alida’s friends represented the queen. She had the
requisite long, slender face and the glowing red hair. Taking the part
of the queen she required no mask, and indeed she was quite enough
burdened without it. Her dress looked as if it were made of a metal;
she had the great head-dress, the ruff, the heavy sleeves, the jewels
and large feather fan of the portrait of the queen which Elizabeth gave
to Sir Henry Sidney.
Behind this Shrove Night Queen Elizabeth came four more
ladies-in-waiting, and then the rest of the guests in pairs, as before.
The procession ended with unmasked beef-eaters, with their staves of
office, like those who had begun it.
The queen’s court made a circuit of the ballroom. Then the queen
took the throne prepared for her at the upper end of the room, her
ladies-in-waiting placed themselves behind her and Mr. Cortlandt stood
at his sovereign’s right. Two by two the courtiers came to the foot
of the throne, moving in a lovely slow dance, made a profound bow to
the queen and were presented to her by that resplendent gentleman at
the queen’s right who, as Beth tried hard to realize, was in actual
life her familiar Uncle Jim. She heard the great names of history
repeated as she leaned forward to see every detail of the beautiful
moving picture, Essex, Leicester, Suffolk, Bacon, Ben Jonson,
Raleigh--Raleigh, who, as he made his bow to the queen, threw his cloak
before her with a sweep of the arm, recalling the day he had spread it
as a carpet over the mud beneath her tread.
Beth knew it was a masquerade, a pageant, but she could not remember
that these were not the personages whose names she heard, that she was
a little girl in New York, not Judith Shakespeare in the London of
three centuries gone. She did not want to remember it; she loved her
transformation.
“Oh, there’s Shakespeare! He said William Shakespeare, Natalie! Look,
look!” cried Beth.
“Don’t act ‘Much Ado About Nothing,’ if it is,” laughed Natalie,
holding Beth down.
A gentleman in black velvet, plainly clad, with a quill in the hand
that carried also a simple hat, with a single black plume, was bowing
before the queen at the moment.
“Might one ask why so young a lady is so passionately interested in the
appearance of Shakespeare?” asked a voice close behind Beth.
All four children faced about with a jump. They did not know that there
was any one besides themselves in the gallery. Aunt Alida had arranged
that her dowager friends, and those who had come to see, not to take
part in the ball, were placed in the other galleries that, as far as
possible, the children might be alone. The gentleman who had spoken
had entered unnoticed by them. He had taken off his mask and showed a
pleasant, frank, manly face. He wore white velvet with crimson slashing
and a crimson cloak. Beth did not know him, and her glance at her
cousins showed her that he was a stranger to them.
“Mercy, you frightened me!” cried Beth. “Shakespeare? Why, I forgot it
wasn’t really him--he--for a minute. So of course it was exciting.”
“It is because it doesn’t seem to me to be ‘of course’ that I
wondered,” said the newcomer smiling at Beth. “I have known little
girls who would have met Shakespeare in the flesh quite calmly. Might I
ask if American children read the poet?”
“Why, you’re English, aren’t you?” cried Dirk, noting his accent.
“You’d better believe they don’t, not many of them. Beth’s death on old
things and poets and all that.”
“Are you Mr. Cortlandt’s children?” asked the stranger with a laugh
that won Beth at once.
“We are,” said Dirk, waving his hand toward his two sisters. “Beth’s
our cousin, Beth Bristead. Are you any relation to Lady Harrowdene?”
“No,” said the young man. “Not related to her; I suppose there is
a connection between us.” His blue eyes twinkled and Beth wondered
what the joke was which she suspected lurked somewhere in his remark.
“You seem a nice quartette of young people. Beth Bristead? Another
Elizabeth, I suppose?” Beth saw him look at Natalie with admiration in
his eyes, but he did not address her; he probably thought her too old
to dispense with the lack of an introduction.
“Yes, I’m Elizabeth, but not often,” said Beth. “We’re the Shakespeare
family ourselves. Natalie is Susanna, Dirk is Hamnet, I’m Hamnet’s
twin sister, Judith. We had to make believe Alys was Lady Alys Dudley;
we’re visiting her. We don’t know there ever was a Lady Alys Dudley,
but we needed her, so we made her up. I’m sure there must have been a
countess, or something, who would have had Shakespeare’s children stay
with her, aren’t you?”
“Certain of it,” declared their new acquaintance with conviction.
“You seem a bit young to be at a ball, or you would be too young to
be allowed at it in England. Miss Cortlandt--it is Miss Cortlandt?”
he bowed deferentially to Natalie--“may be in society, but the
others----?” He broke off, with a puzzled glance at childish Dirk and
Beth.
“We are not at the ball and I am only fifteen,” said Natalie with
dignity. “My father begged my mother to break the rule and let us see
this ball from the gallery, so here we are. We are in costume, because
mama was afraid if any one came up here it would be a discord in the
picture--I mean a blot on it--if we were in just our present-day
frocks. So our governess designed these costumes in a hurry. We aren’t
going to use our assumed names; we aren’t going to do anything but
watch, but Beth couldn’t watch unless she had been fitted out with
a name, so she’d feel part of it--like the right piece in a picture
puzzle! She’s a queer little Coz--aren’t you, Beth?”
“My word!” exclaimed the newcomer, with his hearty boyish laugh. “I
believe you! But that’s the artistic impulse, to preserve the unities!
I’d wager you’ve been feeling yourself the little Shakespeare girl and
that when you heard Will presented to Queen Bess a few moments ago your
first thought was: ‘There’s father at last!’”
“Oh, how did you know!” cried Beth, embarrassed, yet pleased.
The young man nodded. “It’s not so long since I was a boy,” he said.
“When I go home I shall have to tell my young nieces and nephews that I
found young Americans in New York caring more about our great poet than
they do. When I was a small chap it was I who liked making-believe. My
brothers and sisters, all but one sister, never were keen for it. I
used to play at being Clive, or else Wellington.”
“There’s nothing half such fun!” cried Beth. “Were you Wellington? I
suppose a boy has to play he’s a soldier, and, of course, Waterloo
is splendid. But I’m always Mary Queen of Scots, or something--’most
always Queen Mary.”
“Dear me, don’t you ever make believe you’re an American
hero--heroine?” asked the young man. “Nothing could have persuaded
me to be anything but an Englishman in my assumed parts. Like the
gentleman in Pinafore, don’t you know?
“‘In spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations
He was an Englishman.’”
The young man sang these words in a low voice, mellow and pleasant in
tone.
“Do you think I’m not patriotic?” asked Beth, looking troubled.
“Really and truly I am! But you know all those early days my
ancestors were in England, so they belong to me just as much as
they do to--to Lady Harrowdene! Of course I had a grandfather,
great-great-greatest--who fought at Bunker Hill, though.”
“That wasn’t on the British side, I suppose?” the young man inquired
innocently.
“No, it wasn’t,” Beth admitted. “But if the king had only understood
he’d have seen we were good Englishmen when we wanted our rights, my
teacher says.”
“It’s good of you to be so generous to the memory of King George!” This
time the young man laughed with his head thrown back in high glee.
“What makes you so keen for olden days, little Miss Beth?”
“They’re so interesting,” said Beth promptly. “Knights and courts and
princesses and princes! Of course I love the United States best; it
_is_ best, but we haven’t anything but men and women, or a general, or
president. When you just say ‘prince,’ doesn’t it sound splendid? And
Your Royal Highness! Oh, it is much nicer to play about princesses and
princes!”
“Ah, here you are, prince!” cried a new voice at the back of the
gallery. “We’ve looked everywhere for you.”
Natalie and Alys looked around. Three ladies, still masked, stood
there. Beth sat absolutely still. “Prince!” What did it mean? But, yes!
Uncle Jim had said that there was a royal prince visiting New York in
whose honor this ball was given. It must be he, this pleasant-faced,
friendly young man to whom she had been talking freely of her plays,
Bunker Hill--oh, what had she said? Beth was so frightened that she
could not remember.
The prince had risen, looking like a schoolboy in April, caught going
fishing instead of to school.
“I stole away,” he said. “I wanted to see that wonderfully beautiful
scene from above and as a whole, not as an actor in it. Don’t scold me,
duchess! I found companions, also watching the ball. Duchess, ladies--I
do not know who the other two masks conceal--this is the Lady Alys
Dudley, of our gracious sovereign, Queen Elizabeth’s court. This is
Susanna Shakespeare and Hamnet. And this is Judith Shakespeare. Lady
Alys and children of the poet, this is her ladyship, the Duchess of
Ravenspur.”
The children had risen for this introduction. Natalie, inspired,
swept a deep courtesy and Alys followed suit. Beth tried to courtesy,
but failed; her knees refused to bend and come up again, keeping her
balance.
“It’s pleasant to meet Will’s children; we like well his plays at
court,” said the duchess, performing her part nobly. “Really, prince,
I must beg you to return to the floor with us. Do you realize you are
guest of honor to-night, that the ball is yours? Dancing is begun, the
formal dances, you see. There is to be an Elizabethan play soon. Mrs.
Cortlandt is wonderful! Pray come, dear prince.”
“You see, new friends of mine, what a price one has to pay for honors
in this world,” said the prince, turning to the children with his
bright, boyish smile. “Coming, duchess! Good-bye, Lady Alys, Miss
Susanna, Master Hamnet. Good-bye, dear little Judith Shakespeare. I
hope that we may meet again before I sail. In any case you shall hear
from me.”
He was gone. Beth gasped, Natalie and Alys began to chatter excitedly,
but she was mute. A prince! First a countess, then a prince! Surely
this was a Wonder-Winter, a fairy tale, not merely illustrated, but
lived!
Below on the floor moved the resplendent dances of olden times.
At the upper end of the room, right among the spectators, just as
Shakespeare’s own company of players acted, without scenery of setting,
sometimes in the courtyard of an inn, a short play was enacted while
the dancing still went on. It was a kaleidoscope of color and movement
and beauty unspeakable. The other three young people forgot the prince
in their interest in it, but Beth saw it all only vaguely. Her eyes
followed an athletic young figure in white and crimson, and she kept
saying over to herself:
“The king’s son! The son of a king, and I know him!”
At midnight a beautiful series of groups was formed all down the room.
Queen Elizabeth stood before her throne; there rang through the room
the single voice of a silver trumpet, blown by a picturesque herald
in silver and blue at the queen’s side. At its summons all the masks
were dropped; the guests stood revealed. Natalie and Alys grew wildly
excited identifying those they knew. Beth found the duchess. She was
relieved to find that she did not in the least resemble the duchess
in “Alice,” whose thick ugliness she unconsciously had in mind. This
Duchess of Ravenspur was rather young and decidedly handsome, and Beth
was grateful to her for being so.
Then Miss Deland appeared and laid a hand on Natalie’s shoulder, saying:
“Your mother asked me to tell you, dears, that at midnight all
Cinderellas leave a ball and that it is now midnight. She wishes you
to return to your ashes in the fireplace; in other words to go to
bed! Supper is served the guests now; after that there will be modern
dancing until the ball is over. You have seen the best of it.”
“We have seen more than that, Miss Deland,” said Beth solemnly and
impressively. “We have seen and know a prince, _the_ prince! Do you
think he ever will be king?”
“It isn’t likely,” smiled Miss Deland. “There are three brothers older
than he, but of course there’s no saying!”
“Well, he’s the king’s son anyway,” declared Beth. “He’s a real king’s
son, and he talked about making believe and things just like--anybody!”
“There you are! He is like anybody!” cried republican and unromantic
Dirk. “He’s a trump, something like Bob Leonard; not a bit nifty; he’s
all right.”