"Aren't there people outside of books who are flatter than those in them?" asked Phyllis; but she was not thinking of plays on words, but that the dancers of to-night were probably the actors in the theatricals of last May, who had then learned the old dance, and that if she watched she should discover which were Jessamy and Bab, and which Jessamy's friend, Mr. Lane, in regard to whom she felt considerable curiosity. It was not hard to distinguish Jessamy, who had a certain manner of using her hands all her own. She was the Sleeping Beauty, and Phyllis guessed that Bobby Shafto was Mr. Lane—or should it be the other way?
It was not long before she discovered Bab in the guise of Little Miss Muffet, and a tall Little Boy Blue, with a huge Japanese spider on a sort of small fishing-pole which he dangled before the nervous little person who lunched out of doors on curds and whey, was Tom.
"And who am I?" asked Cinderella's godmother, stopping before Phyllis, smiling behind her muslin mask at the girl's preoccupied face.
"I know who the fairy godmother ought to be," said Phyllis. "If you aren't Mrs. Van Alyn, then it's your own character which is the disguise."
"Bravo! You have been getting clever over there in the land of Athena Junior," laughed the godmother, and her voice proved Phyllis right.
"And me?" cried Cinderella, impatiently. "Who am I?"
"I have no idea," Phyllis was slowly beginning, when Cinderella interrupted her.
"How can you be so dull?" she cried. "Who is always sitting in the ashes, and likes them?"
"Why, Ruth!" cried Phyllis, and hugged her friend until some of the realistic black spots on her gown were transferred to her own.