pink Princess-frock that lay on the top of her heap and saying, “Law!”cw

“Oh, don’t touch, please!” Kathleen leaped out of bed as Eliza was reaching out her hand.

“Where on earth did you get hold of that?”

“We’re going to use it for acting,” said Kathleen, on the desperate inspiration of the moment. “It’s lent me for that.”

“You might show me, miss,” suggested Eliza.

“Oh, please not!” said Kathleen, standing in front of the chair in her nightgown. “You shall see us act when we are dressed up. There! And you won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“Not if you’re a good little girl,” said Eliza. “But you be sure to let me see when you do dress up. But where—”

Here a bell rang and Eliza had to go, for it was the postman, and she particularly wanted to see him.

“And now,” said Kathleen, pulling on her first stocking, “we shall have to do the acting. Everything seems very difficult.”

“Acting isn’t,” said Mabel; and an unsupported stocking waved in the air and quickly vanished. “I shall love it.”

“You forget,” said Kathleen gently, “invisible actresses can’t take part in plays unless they’re magic ones.”

“Oh,” cried a voice from under a petticoat that hung in the air, “I’ve got such an idea!”

“Tell it us after breakfast,” said Kathleen, as the water in the basin began to splash about and to drip from nowhere back into itself. “And oh! I do wish you hadn’t written such whoppers to your aunt. I’m sure we oughtn’t to tell lies for anything.”

“What’s the use of telling the truth if nobody believes you?” came from among the splashes.

“I don’t know,” said Kathleen, “but I’m sure we ought to tell the truth.”

“You can, if you like,” said a voice from the folds of a towel that waved lonely in front of the wash-hand stand.

“All right. We will, then, first thing after brekcx—your brek, I mean. You’ll have to wait up here till we can collar something and bring it up to you. Mind you dodge Eliza when she comes to make the bed.”

The invisible Mabel found this a fairly amusing game; she further enlivened it by twitching out the corners of tucked-up sheets and blankets when Eliza wasn’t looking.

“Drat the clothes!” said Eliza; “anyone ’ud think the things was bewitched.”

She looked about for the wonderful Princess clothes she had glimpsed earlier in the morning. But Kathleen had hidden them in a perfectly safe place—under the mattress, which she knew Eliza never turned.

Eliza hastily brushed up from the floor those bits of fluff which come from goodness knows where in the best regulated houses. Mabel, very hungry and exasperated at the long absence of the others at their breakfast, could not forbear to whisper suddenly in Eliza’s ear:

“Always sweep under the mats.”

The maid started and turned pale. “I must be going silly,” she murmured; “though it’s just what mother always used to say. Hope I ain’t going dotty, like Aunt Emily. Wonderful what you can fancy, ain’t it?” .

She took up the hearth-rug all the same, swept under it, and under the fender. So thorough was she, and so pale, that Kathleen, entering with a chunk of bread raided by Gerald from the pantry window, exclaimed:

“Not done yet. I say, Eliza, you do look ill! What’s the matter?”

“I thought I’d give the room a good turn-out,” said Eliza, still very pale.

“Nothing’s happened to upset you?” Kathleen asked. She had her own private fears.

“Nothing—only my fancy, miss,” said Eliza. “I always was fanciful from a child—dreaming of the pearly gates and them little angels with nothing on only their heads and wings—so cheap to dress, I always think, compared with children.”

When she was got rid of, Mabel ate the bread and drank water from the tooth-mug.

“I’m afraid it tastes of cherry tooth-paste rather,” said Kathleen apologetically.

“It doesn’t matter,” a voice replied from the tilted mug; “it’s more interesting than water. I should think red wine in ballads was rather like this.”

“We’ve got leave for the day again,” said Kathleen, when the last bit of bread had vanished, “and Gerald feels like I do about lies. So we’re going to tell your aunt where you really are.”

“She won’t believe you.”

“That doesn’t matter, if we speak the truth,” said Kathleen primly.

“I expect you’ll be sorry for it,” said Mabel; “but come on—and, I say, do be careful not to shut me in the door as you go out. You nearly did just now.”

In the blazing sunlight that flooded the High Street four shadows to three children seemed