ndle. "All's safe," said
she, "the coast is _quite_ clear, and we have not a moment to lose. It
is a fine moonlight night."

Juliet's courage now failed entirely; and she vehemently besought
Madeline to give up a scheme fraught with so much risk and impropriety.
But Madeline was immovable, declaring that she had set her heart on it,
and that she enjoyed nothing so much as what she called an
out-of-the-way frolic. "Since you are so cowardly, Juliet," said she, "I
wish I could venture to go alone; but wild as I am, I confess I am not
quite equal to that--Come, now, off with your frock, and get yourself
dressed in these delectable habiliments."

She then began to unfasten Juliet's dress, who pale, trembling, and with
tears in her eyes, arrayed herself in the clothes that Madeline had
brought for her. The gown was a very dirty one of dark blue domestic
gingham, and she put on with it a yellowish chequered handkerchief, and
a check apron. Over this she pinned an old red woollen shawl, and she
covered her head with a coarse and broken black Leghorn bonnet. The
clothes that Madeline had allotted to herself were a little better,
consisting of a dark calico frock, a coarse tamboured muslin collar, an
old straw bonnet very yellow and faded, and a plaid cloak which belonged
to the cook, and which she had taken out of a closet in the garret.

The two young ladies did not know, or did not recollect, that when
_real_ servant-girls go to the theatre, they generally dress as well as
they can, and take pains to appear to the best advantage. The clothes
that Madeline had selected were quite too dirty and shabby for the
occasion. To complete their costume, she gave Juliet a pair of coarse
calf-skin shoes, which were so large that as she walked her feet seemed
to rise up out of them. Madeline, for her part, put on a pair of
carpet-moccasins over her slippers.

After they were dressed and ready to depart for the theatre, Juliet's
tremor increased, and she was again on the point of relinquishing her
share in the business; but she again yielded to the solicitations of
Madeline, who led her softly down stairs by the light of the moon that
shone in at the staircase windows. They stole, undiscovered, across the
yard and out at the alley-gate; and finding themselves in the street,
began to walk very fast, as people generally do when they are going to
the play.

When they came in view of the theatre, they saw no persons there, except
two or