handsome scale. To be one of the masquers in this year's
pageant would increase her social standing, and magnify her importance
in her Form as nothing else could possibly do. She pictured the triumph
of the scene, the select company of picked actors on the platform, the
music, the flowers, and the lovely effects of colour grouping. The large
lecture hall would be filled to overflowing with pupils and guests.
Alison's uncle would no doubt be there, and Percy and Eric Helm. She
would like them to see her as "Queen of the Daffodils". She might give
three "performer's invitations", so she could ask Dr. and Mrs. Longton
as well as Aunt Barbara. Oh, it would be the event of her life! But how
was all this to happen if she could not be provided with a suitable
costume?

"What it comes to is this," she said to herself. "The thing, to be done
at all, ought to be done well; the girls will laugh at me if I turn up
in sateen, with sixpence-halfpenny bunches of daffodils. I'd rather not
act if I can't have a nice dress. Aunt Barbara might manage it somehow."

Dorothy did her lessons in her den that evening, although there was no
fire and the weather was still cold. She came down to supper so moody
and unresponsive that Miss Sherbourne, after a vain attempt at
conversation, gave up the effort, and the meal passed almost in silence.
The subject of the Masque was not mentioned by either.

Dorothy cried bitterly in bed that night, hot scalding tears of
disappointment--tears that did not soften and relieve her grief, but
only made it harder to bear; and she woke next morning with a splitting
headache.

"Have you finished with this book, Auntie?" she said after breakfast,
taking up the ill-fated catalogue of costumes, which had been left the
night before on the sideboard.

"You might leave it for a day or two, if Miss Hicks can spare it,"
replied Miss Sherbourne. "There is still plenty of time before May the
twelfth."

"What's the matter with Dorothy?" said Mavie Morris that morning at
school. "She's so glum and cross, one can't get a civil word from her.
When I mentioned the pageant, she nearly snapped my head off."

"Tantrums again, I suppose," said Ruth Harmon, shrugging her shoulders.
"The best plan is to leave her alone till she comes out of them. You
ought to know Dorothy Greenfield by this time."

"You shouldn't tease her," said Grace Russell.

"I didn't. I only asked her what her dress was to be like, and she told
me to