What might have happened can never be known, but at the very moment when the side canvas dropped, and the full glories of the Parisian stall and the exquisitely dressed girls were exposed to view, a gay, high voice was heard in the distance, and a lady was seen tripping with little runs across the lawn, and advancing rapidly in the direction of the marquee.
Mrs. Freeman at once went to meet this lady. Dorothy, Evelyn, Frances Murray, and the many school teachers stood motionless, transfixed with astonishment.
"Well, after that!" said Dolly at last, "are there fairies alive? Janet, I think you are bewitched; what a stall!"
"I never saw anything so beautiful in my life," said Evelyn; "only I think I ought to have been told."
"It's a nasty, mean trick!" said Frances Murray, "and I for one am not going to be dazzled. It's enchantment, but it's not going to overcome me." She turned away as she spoke; she realized the meaning of the whole thing more quickly than the other two girls.
"Janet, come here," said Evelyn, running up to her, and pulling her forward. "You are dressed in white muslin and green ribbons, but—O Dolly! look at these girls' dresses. There is nothing whatever for us to do but to hide our diminished heads."
"Not a bit of it!" said Dorothy in a stout voice. She turned away; her cheeks were flushed with anger; she had never felt in a greater passion in her life.
"It's a trick to humiliate you, Eva," she said in a whisper. "I might have guessed that Janet would have been up to something; she never wanted you to have anything to do with the fair. You would not have been asked to join at all but for Mrs. Freeman's command, and now she has invented this way to spite us both. I am not going to be cowed, of course; but I never felt so plain and dowdy in my life. I see now why she has taken up with that wretched little Bridget. Oh, why did we clap Janet in the hall just now?"
"Never mind, dear," said Evelyn. "It does not really matter, of course, whose stall is first. In my heart I never in the least cared to take a prominent place in the bazaar. It was just Mrs. Freeman's wish."
"Just Mrs. Freeman's wish!" echoed Dorothy. "It was your right, Evelyn; you know that perfectly well."