r
like birds.

"Hold on to me, Leila; you'll get lost," said Laura.

"Come on, girls, let's make a dash for it," said Laurie.

Leila put two fingers on Laura's pink velvet cloak, and they were
somehow lifted past the big golden lantern, carried along the passage,
and pushed into the little room marked "Ladies." Here the crowd was so
great there was hardly space to take off their things; the noise was
deafening. Two benches on either side were stacked high with wraps. Two
old women in white aprons ran up and down tossing fresh armfuls.
And everybody was pressing forward trying to get at the little
dressing-table and mirror at the far end.

A great quivering jet of gas lighted the ladies' room. It couldn't wait;
it was dancing already. When the door opened again and there came a
burst of tuning from the drill hall, it leaped almost to the ceiling.

Dark girls, fair girls were patting their hair, tying ribbons again,
tucking handkerchiefs down the fronts of their bodices, smoothing
marble-white gloves. And because they were all laughing it seemed to
Leila that they were all lovely.

"Aren't there any invisible hair-pins?" cried a voice. "How most
extraordinary! I can't see a single invisible hair-pin."

"Powder my back, there's a darling," cried some one else.

"But I must have a needle and cotton. I've torn simply miles and miles
of the frill," wailed a third.

Then, "Pass them along, pass them along!" The straw basket of programmes
was tossed from arm to arm. Darling little pink-and-silver programmes,
with pink pencils and fluffy tassels. Leila's fingers shook as she took
one out of the basket. She wanted to ask some one, "Am I meant to
have one too?" but she had just time to read: "Waltz 3. 'Two, Two in
a Canoe.' Polka 4. 'Making the Feathers Fly,'" when Meg cried, "Ready,
Leila?" and they pressed their way through the crush in the passage
towards the big double doors of the drill hall.

Dancing had not begun yet, but the band had stopped tuning, and the
noise was so great it seemed that when it did begin to play it would
never be heard. Leila, pressing close to Meg, looking over Meg's
shoulder, felt that even the little quivering coloured flags strung
across the ceiling were talking. She quite forgot to be shy; she forgot
how in the middle of dressing she had sat down on the bed with one shoe
off and one shoe on and begged her mother to ring up her cousins and
say she couldn't go after all. And the rush of