"Well, I swun, with folks here from N'York, encouragin' that girl to act her nonsense," murmured Mrs. Sniggs to a neighbor.
But the man-from-New York's face brightened expectantly when Nancy waved her hand out over their heads as though to touch them all with a fairy wand. "Let my magic give you fairy eyes so that you may see that this is not the garden of Happy House but a woodland, peopled by fairy creatures! If you will listen very hard, you will hear them stirring. It is the Flowers. They come to the Woodland to make it ready for the Moon-Queen who will visit them this night!"
Down through the trees danced Nonie, bare-footed, arms outflung, as though she was, indeed, joyously preparing for the triumphal coming of a Queen. In turn she characterized the Daisy, the Hollyhock, the Buttercup and the Rose—then became the good old Dandelion.
"Lily, you are so lazy," the Dandelion sternly admonished her fair sister. "Don't you know the Queen likes tidy gardens when she comes here? And see the muss Buttercup has left around. Oh, dearie me, children will be children and I'll be so glad when Buttercup and Daffy-down-dilly grow up! Daisy, it isn't lady-like to complain that your dress is so plain! I am sure the Queen will think you look very well, if your petals are clean. It's what you do, anyway, and not what you wear!"
Nancy saw Peter Hyde's laughing face drop suddenly between his arms.
With quaint, childish phrasing and with dancing steps Nonie interpreted her story to her audience. When each flower had done its part toward preparing the Garden for the coming of the Queen, Nonie, as the old Dandelion, admonished them to sit very still, "so as not to muss their dresses," and then disappeared only to appear again as the stately Queen. Like a peacock, holding an imaginary train in one hand, Nonie strutted across the grass, now nodding graciously to right and left, now haughtily chiding imaginary moonbeams who accompanied her. Then—the Queen supposedly in state upon her throne—Nonie was again the Dandelion, leading forward her sister flowers to pay court to their Queen.
Suddenly (from the direction of Aunt Milly's chair) came a slow, sorrowful voice that the Flowers (or at least Dandelion) lamented loudly as Trouble. The Flowers were sadly dismayed that Trouble should have intruded upon this festive gathering in honor of the Moon-Queen! But the Moon-Queen implored them "not to worry a bit."
"I know all about Trouble and the harm she does! I see everything as I ride through the sky. But, never fear, we will find a way to get rid of her!" The Queen threw out her hand with an imperial gesture. "Summon Youth!"
Nancy, as Youth, trying very hard not to giggle, answered the summons. In her pink dress, a flush dying her tanned cheeks, her eyes alight with life, she was so much the embodiment of joyous, appealing youth that Peter Hyde, absorbedly watching, felt a catch at his heart.
Gravely the Moon-Queen touched Youth with her magic wand.