'I never thought,' said Harry, 'that our little brown mouse would come
out so pretty or so swell.'
'She wanted to be the dormouse,' said Gillian.
'That was impracticable. They were all heath butterflies of different
sorts, wings very correctly coloured and dresses to correspond.
Phyllis the ringlet with the blue lining, Mysie, the blue one, little
Lady Alberta, the orange-tip, and the other child the burnet moth.'
'How did Mysie dance?'
'Very fairly, if she had not looked so awfully serious. The dancing-
mistress, French, of course, had trained them, it was more ballet than
quadrille, and they looked uncommonly pretty. Uncle William granted
that, though he grumbled at the whole concern as nonsense, and wondered
you should send your nice little girl into it to have her head turned.'
'Do you think she was happy?'
'Oh, yes, of course. She always is, but she was in prodigious spirits
when we started to come home. Lady Rotherwood said I was to tell you
that no child could be more truthful and conscientious. Still somehow
she did not look like the swells. Except that once, when she was got
up regardless of expense for the ball, she always had the country mouse
look about her. She hadn't--'
'The 'Jenny Say Caw,' as Macrae calls it?' said his mother. 'Well, I
can endure that! You need not look so disgusted, Gill. You didn't hear
of her getting into any scrape, did you?'
'No,' said Hal. 'Stay, I believe she did break some glass or other,
and blurted out her confession in full assembly, but I was over at
Beechcroft, and I am happy to say I didn't see her.
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