When the curtain went up the scene on the stage was so absorbing that she forgot Eugenia. She forgot where she was, for the play carried her bodily into fairy-land. The queen of the fairies was there with her star-tipped wand and all her spangled court, and Lloyd looked and listened with breathless attention, while the naughty Puck played pranks on all the butterflies, and, finally catching them at play in a moonlighted forest, took all the gauzy-winged creatures captive. It was as entrancing as looking into a living fairy tale, and when at last the queen released the prisoners with a wave of her star-tipped wand, and to the soft notes of the violins, the butterflies danced off the stage, Lloyd drew a long breath and came down to earth with a sigh. She could have listened gladly for hours more.
But the curtain was down, the people were rising all over the house, and Keith was holding her party cloak for her to slip into. Mrs. Moore turned to Allison.
"Elise is wild to see behind the scenes," she said. "I am going to keep her with me a little while. Your cousin Malcolm says that he and Keith can take you home in their carriage with Lloyd and Kitty. So I'll send Anna and Rob home in mine and wait here until it comes back. Tell your mother I'll take good care of Elise and bring her home as soon as I attend to my little protegés behind the scene."
Many of the children who had taken part in the performance were from the free kindergarten, and Elise, holding fast to Mrs. Moore's hand, watched the transformation behind the scenes, from gauzy wings to gingham gowns, with wondering eyes.
"It is like when Cinderella lost her glass slipper," she said. "The clock struck twelve, and her silks turned to rags."
All the glitter and glory of fairy-land had disappeared with the footlights. In the wintry light of the late afternoon, some of the faces were pitifully thin and wan.
"Here are three little butterflies that must go back home and be grubs again," said Mrs. Moore, as she beckoned to the children whom she had promised to take home in her carriage. Elise looked at them, wondering if it could be possible that they were the same children, who, fifteen minutes before, had looked so radiantly beautiful in their spangled costumes on the stage. They were shy little things who could scarcely find words to answer Mrs. Moore's questions, but they seemed to enjoy the drive in the warm closed carriage, behind the team of prancing bays.
Elise chatted on gaily, telling Mrs. Moore how much she had enjoyed the carnival, how she had admired the fairy queen, and how she longed for a real live fairy. She had looked for them often in the morning-glories and the lily-bells. If she could find one maybe it would tell her where to look for Dot.
Presently they turned into a side street among unfamiliar tenement-houses, and paused at an alley entrance.