How long she lay snuggled there, half hid by the crimson curtains, while the rain made its unwearied assault upon the window panes and the wind soughed mournfully among the trees, she did not know. When she awoke, Laura was playing the two step, to the wonder and admiration of the Ramsey girls who were practising the dance together. Ivy did not see Alene anywhere and for a moment she had a strange, half-waking dream, that she was upstairs all alone in the tower room, weeping because Vera had beat and pinched her.
"Why didn't I go up with them? I thought only of myself, as usual," Ivy muttered. She was on the point of rising to go in search of Alene when a noise was heard and there in the doorway stood a queer little figure enveloped from head to foot in a blue gingham apron. That she was no stranger was evidenced by Prince leaping joyfully beside her.
"I've come to invite you-alls to a taffy pulling in the kitchen," she said, with a drawl and an odd little courtesy that made everybody laugh, "No one admitted except en costume," pointing to her apron, "so each of you must find one hidden somewhere in the hall or dining-room!"
"Hurrah!"
"Good fun!"
"Come along!"
A rush was made and the search began.
Ivy was the first to find an apron in the folds of an umbrella on the hall rack, the very place where, strange to say, Laura had searched unsuccessfully a moment before. With the help of the latter she was soon draped in its red and white bars and joined Alene in watching the others.
Hermione's search at the back of a door was rewarded by the discovery of a costume hanging on the knob; Vera found another folded under a cushion in the dining-room and Laura, by lifting the lid of a covered-dish on the sideboard, disclosed the last.
"We look like a crowd of orphans out for a walk," said Ivy, as holding on to each other's apron strings, they filed into the kitchen.