“And Elfie?” asked Mrs. Brownlow.
“I’m not so late as Janet,” she answered; and the others laughed at the self-defence before the attack.
“It is a lazy little Elf in town,” said Miss Ogilvie; “in the country she is up and out at impossible hours.”
“Good morning, Janet,” said Bobus, at that moment, “or rather, ‘Marry come up, mistress mine, good lack, nothing is lacking to thee save a pointed hood graceless.’”
For Janet was arrayed in a close-fitting pale blue dress, cut in semblance of an ancient kirtle, and with a huge chatelaine, from which massive chains dangled, not to say clattered—not merely the ordinary appendages of a young lady, but a pair of compasses, a safety inkstand, and a microscope. Her dark hair was strained back from a face not calculated to bear exposure, and was wound round a silver arrow.
Elfie shook with laughter, murmuring—
“Oh dear! what a fright!” in accents which Miss Ogilvie tried to hush; while Babie observed, as a sort of excuse, “Janet always is a figure of fun when she is picturesque.”
“My dear, I hope you are not going to show yourself to any one in that dress,” added her mother.
“It is perfectly correct,” said Janet, “studied from an old Italian costume.”
“The Marchioness of Carabbas, in my old fairy-tale book. Oh, yes, I see!” and Babie went off again in an ecstatic fit of laughter.