"I'm not," said Elfrida untruly, and sniffed with some intensity.
"If you could make up some poetry now," Edred went on, "would that be any good?"
"Not without the dresses," she sniffed. "You know we always had dresses for our magic, or nearly always; and they have to be dead and gone people's dresses, and you'll only go to the dead and gone people's time when the dresses were worn. Oh! dear Dickie, and if he's really down a mine, or things like that, what's the good of anything?"
"I'm going to try, anyway," said Edred, "at least you must too. Because I can't make poetry."
"No more can I when I'm as unhappy as this. Poetry's the last thing you think of when you're mizzy."
"We could dress up, anyway," said Edred hopefully. "The bits of armor out of the hall, and the Indian feather head-dresses father brought home, and I have father's shooting-gaiters and brown paper tops, and you can have Aunt Edith's Roman sash. It's in the right-hand corner drawer. I saw it on the wedding day when I went to get her prayer-book."
"I don't want to dress up," said Elfrida; "I want to find Dickie."
"I don't want to dress up either," said Edred; "but we must do something, and perhaps, I know it's just only perhaps, it might help if we dressed up. Let's try it, anyway."
Elfrida was too miserable to argue. Before long two most miserable children faced each other in Edred's bedroom, dressed as Red Indians so far as their heads and backs went. Then came lots of plate armor for chest and arms; then, in the case of Elfrida, petticoats and Roman sash and Japanese wickerwork shoes and father's shooting-gaiters made to look like boots by brown paper tops. And in the case of Edred, legs cased in armor that looked like cricket pads, ending in jointed foot-coverings that looked like chrysalises. (I am told the correct plural is chrysalides, but life would be dull indeed if one always used the correct plural.) They were two forlorn faces that looked at each other as Edred said--
"I can't," said Elfrida, bursting into tears again; "I _can't_! So there. I've been trying all the time we've been dressing, and I can only think of--
"Oh, call dear Dickie back to me, I cannot play alone; The summer comes with flower and bee, Where is dear Dickie gone?