"We will give you a chance!" cried Rob. "I'll announce immediately that I will resume story-telling to the Fayre children. It won't be much, but it will enable you to afford one more cripple, anyway."
"I think we might have a costume entertainment; our attic is full of the loveliest things," said Prue.
"Why, Prue, how did we all happen to forget those venerable costumes up-stairs!" exclaimed Wythie. "We can give something really worth while."
"It would be no end of fun," said Frances slowly; she had dropped in at the little grey house and had been kept for luncheon. She was wondering if the Grey girls did not remember the frolic they had had in those antiquated garments on the last night of their father's life. She saw Rob's lips draw a little at the corners as she smiled, and she knew that her "Patergrey's" "son Rob" was thinking of that night.
"It would be a frolic for us, but what form could the affair take that people would come to it? You mean to sell tickets to it?" Rob asked.
"Why, of course; we mean it to earn money to give Hester another cripple," laughed Prue.
"Make it a dance to which everybody must come in costume, and for which they must buy tickets for the privilege of coming," said Frances, whose practical mind always was quick to plan details. "We will lead the dancing, and do a costume gavotte, or something—Let's see—three Greys, Hessie and I are five girls, and Battalion B and Hessie's cousin are four boys. We'll get three more girls and four more boys, and we'll practise an old-time dance; we can make it lovely. And—why not?—let's have the dance preceded by a short concert of old-time songs. Mama will lend our house, I'm sure of that, and we could have the nicest kind of an affair."
Hester fairly beamed with joyous excitement. "Why, what has made you girls so perfectly angelic this morning?" she cried. "You have always been interested, but not so ready charged to go right off at a touch as you are now. If Rob would tell stories for the Home this winter, and you would have this entertainment—why, we could take two more children at once! It seems as though I could not wait to carry out this beautiful plan, and I can hardly believe it when I see that it really begins to look like a possibility."
"It's getting to be a probability, Hester," said Rob. "One thing that has fired our zeal is Dr. Fairbairn's report on it. He has been talking about it here, and he has found several people deeply interested, while the dear old man himself is enthusiastic. Then Aunt Azraella, of all people under the sun, has inspired us with courage. She said the other day that if we proved to be in earnest, and she could be shown that this home for incurable little waifs stood a chance of being an accomplished fact, she might help it. I could hardly gasp out my answer, but if she can be interested in the scheme it could be put through, for Aunt Azraella has a good deal of money, we think—we never knew how much she really had."