“The throne thing ought to be white, too,” said Pinkie, who had an eye for color effect. “It’ll be a lot prettier to pin the flowers and greens on, if it’s white first. Let’s get sheets,—shall we, Dolly?”
“I don’t care,” said Dolly, absorbed in making Eliza’s turban stay on her head.
So Pinkie and Madeleine flew for the sheets, and stripped the clothesline of all there were there.
“Now!” they exclaimed, coming back triumphantly, with their arms full of billows of white linen.
“Now!” cried Dick, and they fell to work, and draped and twisted the sheets, until the wheelbarrow was a lovely white throne. This they decked with their flower garlands, and then lifted Queen Eliza up on it. As she, too, had been decked with blossoms and garlands, it was really a pretty sight, and the children clapped their hands and danced about in glee at their own success.
“Now, we’ll crown her,” said Dick, “but I say, Dollums, we all ought to be in white, too!”
“That’s easy,” said Dolly, recklessly; “there’s lots of things on the clothesline yet.”
Back there they all ran, and chose costumes to please their varying tastes.
The three girls chose more ruffled nightgowns like Eliza’s and looped them up with flowers on either side, like fancy overskirts.
The boys selected lace-ruffled petticoats that belonged variously to the aunts or to Hannah and Delia, and round their shoulders they draped tablecloths or pillowshams in toga fashion.