"Now do remember when it's time to come home. Though why I should expect anybody to remember in order to save me——"
Rosalie and Alice and Amanthus were waiting at their gate and led them in, not to the house, but across the clipped lawn gleaming in the slanting light of the mid-afternoon, to a clump of shrubberies so old and hoary that beneath their branches was the spaciousness of a room. Here the ground was heaped with treasure, a lace scarf, some trailing skirts, a velvet cape, slippers with spangled rosettes, feathers, fans, what not?
"I am the goose-girl waiting until the prince comes," said Amanthus.
"I am the beggar-maid waiting for the king," said Rosalie.
"I am the forester's foster-daughter lost in the woods until the prince pursuing the milk-white doe finds her," said Alice.
"Then in the twinkling of an eye our rags will be changed to splendor," said Amanthus. "There is a skirt for everyone and a feather and a fan. Who will you be?" to Emmy Lou and Charlotte.
They were embarrassed. "I never heard of the goose-girl and the others," said Emmy Lou. Nor had Charlotte.
Dismay ensued and incredulous astonishment.
A lady came strolling from the house across the lawn. She was tall and fair, and as she drew near one saw that her smile was in her quiet eyes. Emmy Lou felt promptly that she loved her.
"Mother," cried Alice.