ntil the last available moment, and
came out, much to Fil's satisfaction, in quite creditable ringlets. The
effect was so altogether charming that her room-mates called a general
halt for admiration.

"You look like a mixture of Dolly Varden and Sweet Lavender, with a dash
of Maid Marian thrown in," decided Verity.

"I hope my hair'll keep in curl! There's rather a damp feeling in the
air," fluttered Fil anxiously.

"You could fly indoors, and give it a twist with the tongs, if it gets
very limp," suggested Nora.

Nora herself was going as a personification of "The Kitchen." Her skirt
was draped with dusters and dish-cloths, she wore a small dish-cover as
a hat, clothes-pegs were suspended round her neck as a necklace, and she
brandished a rolling-pin in her hand.

"I'm bound to be something comic," she assured the others. "I'd never
keep my face straight for a romantic character. I could no more live up
to Lady Jane Grey than I could fly! She's above me altogether!"

Verity, who had borrowed a Dutch costume slightly too small for her, was
trying to squeeze her proportions into the tight velvet bodice, and
looked dubiously at the sabots.

"I'll never be able to dance in those!" she decided. "I'll put them on
to start with, and then kick them off and slip on my sandals instead.
They're the most extraordinary clumpy things in the world, I feel like a
cat walking in walnut shells!"

Ingred's toilet progressed very favorably till it came to the stage of
coloring her face. She was not quite sure as to the best means of
obtaining a Red Indian complexion. First she tried rubbing it with soil
from the garden, but that was a painful process which almost scraped the
skin from her cheeks. So she washed her face and used cocoa. She mixed
it in a cup and dabbed it over, but it would not go on smoothly, and the
result was so patchy and hideous that once more she brought out her
sponge and wiped it off. At that point Verity came to the rescue,
smeared the poor cheeks (already sore through such ill-treatment) with
vanishing cream, then powdered on some dry cocoa, which certainly gave a
dusky and non-European aspect to her features, especially when combined
with the feather head-dress. Her dark hair, plaited in two long tails,
completed the illusion. The girls held a complacent review of their
toilets, then walked downstairs with caution, for Nora's dish-cover was
difficult to balance as a hat, and Verity's heels kept slipping