Part 60 (1/2)

'She said all little girls had birthdays, and Ellen Bruce had told Angel all about the dance in honour of hers.'

'Ah!' said Wilmet, 'we'll have Angel out of the way of that kind of chatter.'

'Poor little maid! of course I had to quench her,' said Felix, as far as her own day was concerned. I told her more about it than she had ever heard, but then she took me aback by saying Father was happy, and she thought he would like her to be happy.'

'You didn't consent!' exclaimed Wilmet.

'I represented that it was Theodore's birthday as well, and that strangers would make him miserable. She was really very good, and I want you just to consider whether we could not do something--of course on a different day--but in the course of the holidays, by way of treat. Surely you could invite some of Miss Pearson's pupils.'

'I don't like to begin, Felix,' said Wilmet; 'there would be reciprocity, and no one knows where it might lead to.'

'A few white muslin frocks--eh, W. W.? I think we could stand them.'

'That is not all I mean,' said Wilmet; 'it is the sort of style of thing. It would be all very well to have a few little girls here, but they would all ask us again, and I could not answer for what might happen at their homes.'

'It is out!' said Edgar. 'Now we know the sort of style of thing it might lead to. Minerva under a mistletoe bough.'

'Hurrah!' burst out Lance, in convulsions of mirth, which infected Felix and Cherry; while Wilmet, as simple as she was discreet, blushed up to the tips of her ears, and tried to defend herself.

'They tell me of doings at their parties that are what I should not like for our little girls, and I don't think you would, Felix.'

'Forfeits, to wit?' asked Edgar. 'Or cards, or waltzing. You may as well be explicit, Mettie.'

'No, no,' said Felix, 'Mettie shall not be teased: she is right in the main.' But his tone was that he always used when her prudence was too much for him.

'And the family refinement is to be secured by sitting in ashes all Christmas,' said Edgar. 'Slightly unchristian, it strikes me.'

'But,' continued Felix, 'out of these domestic ashes, we must get up some sport for the children. I stand committed to Stella.'

'Shall I get Bill Harewood, and do Box and c.o.x?' suggested Lance.

'Might we not get up something they could take part in themselves?'

said Cherry; 'Cinderella, or some such little play?--Edgar, you know how to manage such things.

'Wilmet doesn't know where they would lead to,' gravely responded Edgar.

'To Lance's going off with a circus,' said Felix.

'I always had a great mind to do so,' responded Lance. 'To sing comic songs on one leg on a spotted horse's back, and go about day and night in a yellow van drawn by elephants--I call that life!'

'Secure a berth for me as scene-painter!' cried Edgar. 'See how I'd draw a house by the very outline of Mazeppa outside!'

'And Felix will print all our advertis.e.m.e.nts gratis!'

'Oh!' broke in Cherry, 'I have a notion. Couldn't we make a play of the conjuror in disguise? It is Dr. Knowall in German popular tales, Robin the Conjuror in English.'

'Nothing foolish, I hope?' seriously asked Wilmet.

'Oh no. Don't you recollect? The story is, that a set of thieves steal a jewel, a man comes shamming conjuror and offering to find it for the owner, intending to trust to chance, and feast at her expense as long as he is not found out.'

'I remember!' exclaimed Lance, you used to tell us the story.