"What it comes to is this," she said to herself. "The thing, to be done at all, ought to be done well; the girls will laugh at me if I turn up in sateen, with sixpence-halfpenny bunches of daffodils. I'd rather not act if I can't have a nice dress. Aunt Barbara might manage it somehow."
Dorothy did her lessons in her den that evening, although there was no fire and the weather was still cold. She came down to supper so moody and unresponsive that Miss Sherbourne, after a vain attempt at conversation, gave up the effort, and the meal passed almost in silence. The subject of the Masque was not mentioned by either.
Dorothy cried bitterly in bed that night, hot scalding tears of disappointment--tears that did not soften and relieve her grief, but only made it harder to bear; and she woke next morning with a splitting headache.
"Have you finished with this book, Auntie?" she said after breakfast, taking up the ill-fated catalogue of costumes, which had been left the night before on the sideboard.
"You might leave it for a day or two, if Miss Hicks can spare it," replied Miss Sherbourne. "There is still plenty of time before May the twelfth."
"What's the matter with Dorothy?" said Mavie Morris that morning at school. "She's so glum and cross, one can't get a civil word from her. When I mentioned the pageant, she nearly snapped my head off."
"Tantrums again, I suppose," said Ruth Harmon, shrugging her shoulders. "The best plan is to leave her alone till she comes out of them. You ought to know Dorothy Greenfield by this time."
"You shouldn't tease her," said Grace Russell.
"I didn't. I only asked her what her dress was to be like, and she told me to mind my own business. All those who are acting are just full of their costumes. They talk of nothing else."
"Is Dorothy's going to be a nice one?" asked Ruth.
"I don't know; she wouldn't tell me anything. Dorothy doesn't generally have handsome things, does she?"
"No; she's one of the plainest-dressed girls in the Form."
"But she'll surely come out in something decent for the Masque! She must, you know."
"Perhaps that's the rub--poor Dorothy!" murmured Grace Russell.
When Dorothy returned home that afternoon she found Miss Sherbourne busy at her writing table. Generally all papers were cleared away before tea-time, and Aunt Barbara was ready to help with lessons, or play games and chat afterwards; to-day, however, she instituted a new regime.