Even Phyllis looked sober and Miss Jenny Ann looked exceedingly uncomfortable.
“O, you geese! cheer up!” laughed Madge. “I know Mrs. Curtis would not disappoint us for worlds. Why, she has all our measures. She couldn’t forget. Oh, dear, does my breakfast gown look all right? There is some one knocking at our door. It may be that Mrs. Curtis has sent up our frocks.”
“Then open the door, for goodness’ sake,” begged Eleanor. “Your breakfast gown is lovely; only at home we called it a wrapper, but then you were not visiting on Fifth Avenue.”
Madge made a saucy little face at Eleanor. Then she saw a group of persons standing just outside their bedroom door. A man-servant held four enormous white boxes in his arms; a maid was almost obscured by four other boxes equally large. Behind her servants stood Mrs. Curtis, smiling radiantly, while Tom was peeping over his mother’s shoulder.
Madge clasped her hands fervently, breathing a quick sigh of relief. “Our bridesmaids’ dresses! I’m too delighted for words.”
“Were you thinking about them, dear?” apologized Mrs. Curtis. “I ought to have sent the frocks to you sooner, but I wanted to bring them myself, and this is the first moment I have had. You’ll let Tom come in to see them, too, won’t you?”
The man-servant departed, but Mrs. Curtis kept the maid to help her lift out the gowns from the billows of white tissue paper that enfolded them. She lifted out one dress, Miss Jenny Ann another, and the maid the other two.
The girls were speechless with pleasure.
Mrs. Curtis, however, was disappointed. Perhaps the girls did not like the costumes. She had used her own taste without consulting them. Then she glanced at the little group and was reassured by their radiant faces.
“O you wonderful fairy godmother!” exclaimed Madge. “Cinderella’s dress at the ball couldn’t have been half so lovely!”