At the foot of the steps leading from the house stood a woman dressed in the gorgeous long robes worn in Spain long years ago. By her side stood a Spanish courtier of olden days, apparently just about to kneel and kiss her hand. And, most astonishing of all, just back of the lady stood Mary Jane, her eyes round with excitement and delight.
“Mary Jane!” cried Mrs. Merrill, “what are you doing? Where are you? How did you come in here?”
“Through the gate just like you did, Mother,” replied Mary Jane, answering the last question first, “and I came because he asked me to, he did.” And she pointed her finger at a man who stood at Mrs. Merrill’s left.
“The little girl is right,” said the man as he stepped up to Mrs. Merrill, “and I must ask your pardon for the fright we seem to have caused you. But I do beg of you to let us borrow your daughter for about five minutes more—we have such need of her.”
Mrs. Merrill looked around the yard and saw what she had been too excited before to notice. In the front of the yard, close by the hedge, was a moving picture camera, and by it two men working under the director who was speaking to her.
“Let me explain,” continued the man. “We are making a picture supposably taken in Spain—not a hard thing to imagine with all these Spanish houses and gardens around here,—and this lady is supposed to be a queen. But at the last minute, just as we were ready to run the picture through, the lady” (and he pointed to the courtly dressed woman by the steps) “wanted some ladies or children-in-waiting to carry her train. We have the robes but not the people here and I have to get the picture done to-day. That explains why, when I looked out of the garden and saw your daughter I ventured to borrow her a minute. If we may use her long enough to throw a robe over her and get the picture of the queen so attended walking down the walk, I’ll be very glad.”
Mrs. Merrill was just about to refuse for she had no desire to have Mary Jane in a movie, when Alice nudged her and whispered, “Mother! Couldn’t I be in it too?”
The director noticed the whisper and guessed what she was saying. “We’d like to have this little girl too,” he said; “we have plenty of clothes for two and I’m sure if one train bearer is good, two will be better—isn’t that so, Miss Arlson?”
The pretty lady in the queen’s robe nodded and smiled and said she must have two maids, so the director hurried away to get the costumes. In a jiffy he was back and with two or three deft touches he tossed a robe over each girl, covered Mary Jane’s bobbed hair and Alice’s braids with lace head-dresses and showed them where to stand behind the queen.
Then with a hurried “click, click, click, click, click, click!” the picture was taken and every one began to move about and talk. The girls almost hated to give up their pretty costumes and Mary Jane remarked as the director took hers off, “Those would make awfully nice ‘dress-up clothes’ I think!”