In their pink and blue quilts they talked and talked in the darkness, for, of course, Mrs. Forest and the teachers mustn’t see any light gleaming under their doors after ten o’clock. Soon their eyes grew heavy and the thoughts of fudge began to mix themselves up curiously with dreams.
They were two little tumbled over figures, fast asleep, Peggy on her couch and Katherine on hers, when the indignant guests, wondering why they had not been summoned to the party and deciding to come without waiting for the formal bidding, strode in upon them, with much flutter of silk and crepe kimono, and patter, patter of slippered feet.
“Well, did you ever!” cried Florence Thomas. “Light the candles somebody; Doris start the chafing-dish, and Helen measure out that butter,—”
“Is—it—time—to—get—up?” came in muffled accents from Katherine’s couch, and a moment later a candle gleam flickered into her drowsy eyes. “Oh, my stars, girls!” she cried, sitting up at once and staring around wildly, “do you think this is a nice way to come to a party?”
Peggy was breathing evenly, and she turned fretfully to the wall when Florence shook her. “Oh, very well, Miss Fudge Party,” Florence murmured, “we’ll see if you won’t wake up,—” and she went over to the wash pitcher behind the screen and dipped a wash-cloth in its cold contents.
“Ha ha,” she laughed, in imitation of a stage villain. Wringing out her weapon she approached the couch of the unconscious sleeper, full of delighted anticipation.
Just as the terrible and efficient awakener was about to slap down on its victim’s placid face the victim opened her eyes and looked up at the plotter reproachfully.
“Oh, I heard your fiendish plot—I heard the water sousing around,” she said, “but I thought there was no use waking up till the last minute,—I was in the middle of such a delicious dream.”
“Well,” sighed Florence, much wounded, because, of course, you can’t put a wet wash-cloth on a waking person’s face. “All that energy wasted. Girls, do hurry up the fudge, so that I can comfort myself for having been ‘foiled again.’”
The room, with the little whispering group of girls in it, some on the couches and some on the floor, garbed in all the delicate shades of boudoir attire, pale blue, pink, and rose, saffron yellow, lavender and dainty green; with the tiny spurts of golden candle flame dotted here and there on table and mantlepiece; with the hot, chocolate-smelling fudge bubbling away in the chafing-dish, looked like some fairy meeting place, with all the adorable fairies assembled.