figure to dance! I'm afraid they would turn you out of your monastery,
if they caught you."

Honor was determined to enact the part of Dick Turpin. She had corked
herself the most ferocious moustaches, and made a cocked hat out of
brown paper; and was now only waiting for a certain cloak, the horse
pistol, and the pair of top-boots, which Vivian had promised to bring
her if Barbara Russell, one of the elder girls, did not want them.

"I heard Barbara say she meant to be a shepherdess," she said, "so she
couldn't possibly wear top-boots. I don't believe anybody else has
thought of a highwayman. I wish Vivian would be quick!"

She was in a ferment of excitement. A festivity such as this was an
event in her life. She could hardly bear to wait, and would have been
down the passage in search of the missing properties, only she did not
wish to exhibit her beautiful moustaches before the right time.

"Vivian won't be long," Janie assured her. "She is the most dependable
person I know; when she says she'll do a thing, she does it. Oh, here
she is now!"

Honor sprang to the door, but her face fell as she saw the monitress
arrive empty-handed.

"I'm dreadfully sorry!" announced Vivian. "Barbara decided, after all,
to be Oliver Cromwell, so of course she wanted the cloak, boots, and
pistol. I've brought you a few bangles and a wreath of flowers, if
they'll be of any use to you; I've nothing else left. I must fly! I've
to get into my own costume."

Poor Honor! It was a bitter disappointment. She had counted so much on
representing Dick Turpin that to have to forgo the part seemed little
short of a tragedy.

"I can't do a highwayman in nothing but a pair of corked moustaches!"
she exclaimed dolefully.

"It is a pity," sympathized Janie, "but of course it can't be helped.
If we're very quick we shall just have time to think of something else.
Could you manage a fairy, with the bangles and the wreath and a white
petticoat?"

"A fairy! No! Do I look like a fairy? I'm so cross, it would have to be
a goblin. I know what I'll do; I shall go as an Arab."

"With the towels wound round you, I suppose?"

"They're not big enough; I must use my sheets," and Honor, suiting her
action to her words, ruthlessly disarranged her bed.

If the towels were too small, the sheets proved too large. In spite of
Janie's efforts (much hampered by her cassock and cowl) they refused to
drape elegantly. Honor lost all patience at last, and, seiz