Melbourne House Part 134

"Oh, that is to show the pictures nicely. They will look a great deal better than if all the room and the books could be seen behind them."

"Why?"

"I suppose they will look more like pictures. By and by all those lights on the stand will be lighted. And we shall dress in the library, you know, ? n.o.body will be in it, ? and in the room on the other side of the hall. All the things are brought down there."

"Daisy," said Nora? looking at the imposing green baize screen, "aren't you afraid?"

"Are you?" said Daisy.

"Yes ? I am afraid I shall not do something right, or laugh, or something."

"Oh, but you must not laugh. That would spoil the picture. And Mrs. Sandford and Preston will make everything else right.

Come and see the crown for Ahasuerus!"

So they ran across the hall to the room of fancy dresses. Here Ella presently joined them with her sister, and indeed so many others of the performers that Preston ordered them all out. He was afraid of mischief, he said. They trooped back to the library.

"When are they going to begin?" said Nora.

"I don't know. Oh, by and by. I suppose we shall have tea and coffee first. People at a party must get through that."

To await this proceeding, and indeed to share in it, the little company adjourned to the drawing-room. It was filling fast. All the neighbourhood had been asked, and all the neighbourhood were very glad to come, and here they were, pouring in. Now the neighbourhood meant all the nice people within ten miles south and within ten miles north; and all that could be found short of some seven or eight miles east.

There was one family that had even come from the other side of the river. And all these people made Melbourne House pretty full. Happily it was a very fine night.

Daisy was standing by the table, for the little folks had tea at a table, looking with a face of innocent pleasure at the scene and the gathering groups of people, when a hand laid gentle hold of her, and she found herself drawn within the doctor's arm and brought up to his side. Her face brightened.

"What is going on, Daisy?"

"Preston has been getting up some tableaux, Dr. Sandford, to be done by the young people."

"Are you one of the young people?"

"They have got me in," said Daisy.

"Misled by your appearance? What are you going to play, Daisy?"

Daisy ran off to a table and brought him a little bill of the performances. The doctor ran his eye over it.

"I shall know what it means, I suppose, when I see the pictures. What is this 'Game of Life?"

"It is Retsch's engraving," Daisy answered, as sedately as if she had been forty years old.

"Retsch! yes, I know him ? but what does the thing mean?"

"It is supposed to be the devil playing with a young man ? for his soul," Daisy said, very gravely.

"Who plays the devil?"

"Preston does."

"And who is to be the angel?"

"I am to be the angel," said Daisy.

"Very judicious. How do you like this new play, Daisy?"

"It is very amusing. I like to see the pictures."

"Not to be in them?"

"I think not, Dr. Sandford."

"Daisy, what else are you doing, besides playing tableaux, all these days?"

"I drive about a good deal," said Daisy. Then looking up at her friend with an entirely new expression, a light s.h.i.+ning in her eye and a subdued sweetness coming into her smile, she added ? "Molly is learning to read, Dr. Sandford."

"Molly!" said the doctor.

"Yes. You advised me to ask leave to go to see her, and I did, and I got it."

Daisy's words were a little undertone; the look that went with them the doctor never forgot as long as he lived. His questions about the festivities she had answered with a placid, pleased face; pleased that he should ask her; but a soft irradiation of joy had beamed upon the fact that the poor cripple was making a great step upwards in the scale of human life. The doctor had not forgotten his share in the permission Daisy had received, which he thought he saw she suspected.

Unconsciously his arm closed upon the little figure it held and brought her nearer to him; but his questions were somehow stopped. And Daisy offered no more; she stood quite still, till a movement at the table seemed to call for her. She put her hand upon the doctor's arm, as a sign that it must hold her no longer, and sprang away.

And soon now all the young people went back again to the library. Mrs. Sandford came with them to serve in her arduous capacity of dresser. June attended to give her help.

"Now what are we going to do?" whispered Nora, in breathless excitement. "What is to be the first picture? Oh, Daisy, I wish you would get them to have my picture last of all."

"Why, Nora?"

"Oh, because. I think it ought to come last. Aren't you afraid? Whew! I am."

"No, I don't think I am."

"But won't you want to laugh?"

"Why?" said Daisy. "No, I do not think I shall want to laugh."

"I shall be too frightened to laugh," said Jane Linwood.

"I don't see, Daisy, how you will manage those queer wings of yours," Nora resumed.

"I have not got to manage them at all. I have only to keep still."

"I can't think how they will look," said Nora. "They don't seem to me much like wings. I think they will look very funny."

"Hush, children ? run away; you are not wanted here. Go into the drawing-room ? and I will ring this hand-bell when I want you."

"What comes first, aunt Sandford?"