There had been a heated altercation, however, between Eleanor and Edna Wright on the day after Eleanor had astonished Grace and her friends by her fiery outburst, Edna having admitted that she had been responsible for the changes that had aroused Eleanor's ire.
A quarrel had ensued, in which Edna, having been worsted, had retired from the field in tears, refusing to have anything further to do with Eleanor or her booth. At this juncture Miss Tebbs had appeared on the scene, and peace was restored, although Edna was still taciturn and sulky, and displayed little interest in what went on around her.
From the moment the doors were opened the citizens of Oakdale looked inside, feeling particularly good-natured after their Thanksgiving dinners, and prepared to spend their money.
"It's perfectly wonderful what these children have managed to do on nothing whatever," Miss Thompson was saying, as she and Mrs. Nesbit, in the guise of sightseers, were strolling down the middle of the hall.
"It looks to me like a scene from an opera," replied Mrs. Nesbit.
"Yes, we are all very prosperous and clean comic opera gypsies, Mrs. Nesbit," said Hippy Wingate, who had come up just in time to hear Mrs. Nesbit's remark.
"Why, Hippy Wingate, I never should have recognized you. You look like the big smuggler in 'Carmen.' I have forgotten his name."
"I am a smuggler, Mrs. Nesbit," put in Hippy mysteriously. "But don't give me away. It's not lace goods I've brought over the border, nor bales of silk and such things. Isn't that what gypsies are supposed usually to smuggle?"
"I believe it is," answered Mrs. Nesbit. "At least they always appear in plays and pictures seated at the foot of a high, rocky cliff in some lonely spot, with bales and casks and strange looking bundles about. No one would be heartless enough to ask what was inside the bundles, but I have always had a strong suspicion that it was excelsior."
"What have you been smuggling, Hippy?" asked Miss Thompson. "I wonder you managed to get it past that line of watchful gipsy girls."