“I have some liquid gilding too,” she went on, “so there will be no trouble about the lettering on the cover. I will do that part and perhaps papa will not object because so much is my work.”
“Oh, no; I’m sure he won’t!” exclaimed Grace; “and mamma, you’re so very kind to help me so!”
Lulu was eagerly turning over the piles of pretty things, while Zoe gave her directions how to fashion them into the desired articles.
Violet went in search of what was needed for the pen-wiper, and presently they were all four busily engaged, chatting and laughing right merrily as they worked, Violet and Zoe seeming to feel almost as young and free from care as the two little girls.
They were dressing paper dolls as fairies in wide-spreading tarleton skirts highly ornamented with tinsel.
Lulu had dressed two, thought their appearance really beautiful, and was highly delighted at her success; she was holding the second one up and calling the attention of her companions to it, when Harold Travilla looked in to say that a quantity of things to be used in getting up the tableaux, had come over from Ion, been taken by the captain’s order, to one of the unoccupied rooms, and mamma thought Vi, Zoe and perhaps Lulu, might like to look them over and select for the different characters.
“Of course we will,” said Zoe, jumping up with alacrity, while Lulu hastily dropped her fairy into her work-basket, asking “O, Mamma Vi, may I?”
“Certainly, dear; Gracie too, if she wishes,” Violet answered pleasantly, adding, “you will have plenty of time to finish your gift for papa afterward, little girlie.”
Zoe had already hurried on ahead, Violet and Lulu followed more slowly, as Grace was not yet strong enough to move quickly, and they would not leave her behind.
Reaching the room whither the package had been conveyed, Grace was comfortably seated in an arm-chair where she could overlook the proceedings without fatigue, and the others gave themselves up to the fascinating business of examining the articles and discussing their merits, and the uses to which they should be put.