To Elizabeth, this driving abroad after nightfall was like taking a voyage to a new planet. It was so wonderful and mysterious, this new, white, moon-lit world. Away in the vast blue dome the stars smiled faintly, outshone by the glory of the big, round moon that rode high above the black tree-tops. The billowing drifts along the road blazed under a veil of diamonds, and the strip of ice on the pond, where Elizabeth and John had swept away the snow for a slide, shone like polished silver. The fields melted away gray and mysterious into the darkness of the woods. Here and there a light twinkled from the farm-houses of the valley. The sleigh-bells jingled merrily, and the company joined their own joyous notes to them and sang the songs that were to be given at the concert. The woods rang with their gay voices as they passed old Sandy McLachlan's place. Sandy still held possession, and was looking forward hopefully to some providential interference in the springtime.
The old man and Eppie were plunging down the snowy lane. The horses were pulled up and they were hauled joyously aboard; and in a few minutes the happy sleighload dashed up to the schoolhouse, which stood there looking twice its usual size and importance, with the light blazing from every window.
CHAPTER IX
THE FAIRY GOD-MOTHER ARRIVES
They found the schoolhouse already rapidly filling. To Elizabeth, the little room presented a scene of dazzling splendor. The place was indeed transformed. It was decorated with festoons of evergreens and wreaths of paper flowers; and lamps twinkled from every window-sill. Across the platform was stretched a white curtain, constructed from Mrs. Robertson's and Mrs. Clegg's sheets, while from behind this magic screen—hiding one could not guess what wonders—shone all the lanterns owned by the population of Forest Glen, and across its glowing surface flitted gigantic shadows.
Martha Ellen Robertson, in a brilliant pink satin waist, and all her jewelry; and Miss Hillary in a new white dress, were already hurrying up and down the aisle marshaling their forces. As the artists appeared they arranged them on the row of improvised benches at the front, charging them to sit there quietly until their turn came for stepping behind the magic curtain.
Elizabeth and Rosie found each other immediately, and sat close together on the very front row. Rosie was a perfect vision in a white dress, with a string of beads around her neck and her curls tied up by a broad pink ribbon. Elizabeth, in her Sunday pinafore, starched a little stiffer than usual, gazed at her in boundless admiration. She had supposed, before leaving home, that Mary would be the most beautiful creature present; but Mary's pale flaxen curls and colorless pinafore were lost in the gorgeous display on all sides. Katie and Lottie Price were the grandest. They fairly bristled with ribbons and lace; but indeed all the girls were so gayly dressed that the Gordons looked like little gray sparrows in a flock of birds of Paradise. Mary sighed and looked around miserably at the gay throng; but little did Elizabeth care. She sat on the front bench, with Rosie on one side and Eppie on the other, and rapturously swung her feet and laughed and talked, all oblivious of her dun-colored clothes. It was quite impossible not to be wildly happy at such a grand festive gathering. The schoolroom seemed some wonderful place she had never seen before. The middle section of the sheets was drawn back, displaying the platform with the teacher's desk and the blackboard, all fairly smothered in cedar and balsam boughs and tissue-paper roses, and smelling as sweet as the swamp behind the school. It was such a bower of beauty that Elizabeth could scarcely believe she had stood there only yesterday, striving desperately to make a complex fraction turn simple.
The crowd was steadily gathering, and the noise steadily increasing. Right at the back a group of boys were bunched together, laughing, talking, and whistling. Elizabeth was ashamed to see that John and Charles Stuart were amongst those whom Miss Hillary was vainly striving to bring up to the performers' seats of honor.
In the midst of the pleasant hum and stir there arose a commotion near the door. A group of strangers was entering. At the sight of them, Miss Hillary plunged behind the curtains, and Rosie and Elizabeth could see her through a division in the sheets, anxiously arranging her hair before the little mirror. Then the wise old Rosie nodded her head significantly, and standing up, peered between the rows of people's heads. "I knew it was him!" she cried triumphantly. "I knew just by the way Miss Hillary jumped,"—and so it was—the owner of the red cutter! Then Elizabeth, forgetting her aunt's eye, jumped up too, and almost cried out with joy, for the man with him, the tall one with the handsome fur collar and cap, was none other than Mr. Coulson! There were two ladies with him, too—but she did not notice them in her delight. He was recognized at once by his old pupils, and they all set up a storm of clapping. The older people, gathered around the stove, crowded about him, shaking his hand and clapping him on the back. Then the Red Cutter came with him up to the curtains and introduced him to Miss Hillary. And all the other young ladies who were helping in the concert shook hands with the old teacher, and Martha Ellen laughed and talked so loud that Elizabeth was delighted and wondered what had pleased her so. Next, Mr. Coulson spied the row of little girls gazing up at him with eager eyes, and he pulled Rosie's curls and Elizabeth's braid, and kissed Mary and pinched Katie and patted all the others on the head. Then he boxed the boys' ears, and told Miss Hillary they were a bad lot, and he didn't see how she put up with them, and altogether behaved so funnily that they fairly shouted with delight. Suddenly he turned abruptly, and, marching up to the platform, took his place at the desk.