After breakfast the next morning the judge proposed a sleigh ride, and soon the entire party were skimming over the ground in two big old-fashioned sleighs. Though the day was fairly cold, the guests were too warmly wrapped to pay any attention to the weather, and keenly enjoyed every moment of the ride.
After lunch a mysterious council took place in the library, and directly after a visit was made to the attic, Grace having received permission to rummage there. Later Reddy and Tom Gray were seen staggering down the stairs under the weight of a huge cedar chest, and later still the girls hurried down, their arms piled high with costumes of an earlier period.
Christmas dinner was to be a grand affair, and the judge had invited half a dozen friends of his own age to share "his borrowed children."
The girls had saved their prettiest gowns for the occasion, and the boys had put on evening dress. The judge viewed them with unmistakable pride as they stood grouped about the drawing room, awaiting the announcement of dinner. An almost imperceptible frown gathered between his brows, however, as his eyes rested upon Marian Barber, who was wearing a fearfully and wonderfully made gown of gold-colored silk, covered with spangles, that gave her a serpentine effect, and made her look ten years older than the other girls.
On going upstairs to dress, Marian had asked Eva Allen if she objected to dressing with Miriam Nesbit, and Eva had obligingly taken her belongings into Miriam's room after obtaining the latter's permission to do so. Marian had engaged the attention of Miss Putnam's maid for the greater part of an hour, and when she did appear the varied expressions upon the faces of her friends plainly showed that she had succeeded in creating a sensation.
"For goodness sake, what ails Marian!" growled Reddy Brooks in an undertone to David. "Can't the girls make her see that she looks like a fright beside them?"
"Anne told me that Grace and Eva have both talked to her," replied David in guarded tones. "Grace thinks Hammond has put this grown-up idea into her head."
"Humph!" growled Reddy in disgust. "She used to be a mighty pleasant, sensible girl, but lately she acts like a different person. I don't think much of that fellow Hammond. He's too good to be true."
"What have we here?" whispered Hippy to Nora under cover of general conversation. "I never before saw so many spingles and spangles collected in one spot."
"Sh-h-h!" pleaded Nora. "Don't make me laugh, Hippy. Marian is looking this way, and she'll be awfully cross if she thinks we are making sport of her."
"She reminds me of a song I once heard in a show which went something like this," and Hippy naughtily sang under his breath:
There was a queer choking sound from Nora and she walked quickly down to the other end of the drawing room and earnestly fixed her gaze upon a portrait of one of the judge's ancestors, until she could gain control of her risibles.
The dinner was a memorable one to both the judge and his guests, and it was after nine o'clock before the last toast had been drunk in fruit punch. Then every one repaired again to the drawing room.
Shortly after, Grace, Anne, Nora, Jessica, Eva and Miriam, accompanied by David, Tom, Hippy and Reddy disappeared, closing the massive doors between the drawing room and the wide hall. Half an hour later Arnold Evans announced that all those wishing to attend the pantomime, "The Mistletoe Bough," could obtain front seats in the hall.
There was a general rush for the hall where the spectators found rows of chairs arranged at one end.
Hardly had they seated themselves when the first notes of that quaint old ballad, "The Mistletoe Bough," sounded from the piano in the drawing room, Nora O'Malley appeared in the archway, and in her clear, sweet voice sang the first verse of the song.
As she finished, the strains of a wedding march were heard, and from the room at the opposite side of the hall came a wedding procession.
Anne, as the bride, was attired in an old-time, short-waisted gown of white satin with a long lace veil, yellow with age, while David in a square-cut costume with powdered wig, enacted the part of the bridegroom. Arnold Evans was the clergyman, Grace and Tom the parents of the bride, while Reddy, Jessica, Hippy and Eva were the wedding guests.
All were garbed in the fashion of "ye olden time," the boys in wigs and square cuts, the girls in short-waisted, low-necked gowns, with hair combed high and powdered.
Then the ceremony was performed in pantomime and the bride and groom received the congratulations of their friends. The groom bowed low over the bride's hand and led her to the center of the hall. The other couples formed in line behind them and a stately minuet was danced.
While the minuet was in progress the bride suddenly stopped in the midst of the figure and professing weariness of the dance, ran out of the room, after signifying to her husband and guests that she would hide, and after a brief interval they should seek for her.
Entering into her fun, the young husband and guests smilingly lingered a moment after her departure, and then ran eagerly off to find her. This closed the scene, and Nora again appeared and sang the next verse.
The cedar chest, brought from the attic by the boys, had been set on the broad landing at the turn of the open staircase, and in the next scene Anne appeared, alone, and discovering the chest climbed gleefully into it and drew the lid down.
Then followed the vain search for her and the deep despair of the young husband at the failure to find his bride, with the final departure of the wedding guests, their joy changed to sorrow over the bride's mysterious disappearance.
There was a brief wait until the next scene, during which another verse of the ballad was sung. Then the husband, grown old, appeared and in pantomime reviewed the story of the strange vanishing of his beautiful bride on her wedding night so many years before. In the next scene two servants appeared with orders to clean out and remove the old chest from the landing. Hippy and Jessica, as the two mischievous prying servants, enacted their part to perfection. Hippy carrying a broom and dust pan, did one of the eccentric dances, for which he was famous, while Jessica, armed with a huge duster, tried to drive him to work.
Finally both lay hold of the old chest, the rusted lock broke and the lid flew open. After one look both servants ran away in terror, and beckoned to the forsaken husband who had appeared in the meantime, seating himself on the oak settee in the lower hall. With eager gestures they motioned him to the landing where the old chest stood. The final tableau, depicted the stricken husband on his knees beside the chest with a portion of the wedding veil in his shaking hands, while the servants, ignorant of the story of the lost bride, looked on in wonder.
During the last tableau Nora softly sang the closing verse and the refrain. Even after the last note had died away the spectators sat perfectly still for a moment. Then the applause burst forth and David bowing in acknowledgment, turned and helped Anne out of the chest, where she had lain quietly after hiding.
The chest had been set with the side that opened toward the wall. While planning for the pantomime the boys had arranged the lid so that it did not close, yet the opening was not perceptible to those seated below. Thus there had been no danger of Anne meeting the fate of the ill-starred Ginevra, the heroine of the ballad.
"You clever children," cried the old judge. "How did you ever get up anything like that on such short notice? It was beautifully done. I have always been very fond of 'The Mistletoe Bough.' My sister used to sing it for me."
"Grace thought of it," said Anne. "We found all those costumes up in the garret in the old cedar chest. We knew the story by heart, and we knew the minuet. We danced it at an entertainment in Oakdale last winter. We had a very short rehearsal this afternoon in the garret and that's all."
"Anne arranged the scenes and coached David in his part of the pantomime," said Grace. "She did more than I."
The judge's guests, also, added their tribute of admiration to that of the judge.
"It was all so real. I could scarcely refrain from telling that poor young husband where his bride had hidden herself," laughed one old gentleman.
"Why don't you children have a little dance?" asked the judge. "This hall ought to make a good ball room, and you can take turns at the piano."
"Oh, may we, Judge?" cried Grace in delight. "I am simply dying to have a good waltz on this floor."
"I'll play for you for a while," volunteered Miriam, "then Eva and Jessica can take my place."
Five minutes later the young folks were gliding about the big hall to the strains of a Strauss' waltz, while the judge and his friends looked on, taking an almost melancholy pleasure in the gay scene of youthful enjoyment.
"Will you dance the next waltz with me, Miss Harlowe!" said Henry Hammond to Grace, as she sat resting after a two-step.
After a second's hesitation Grace replied in the affirmative. Despite her resolve to make peace with him, up to that moment Grace had been unable to bring herself to the point of speaking pleasantly to him.
The waltz began, and as they glided around the room she was obliged to acknowledge herself that Henry Hammond's dancing left nothing to be desired.
"Perhaps my impressions of him are unjust, after all," thought Grace. "I suppose I have no right to criticize him so severely, even though he was rude to me the other night. I was rude, too. Perhaps he will turn out—"
But Grace's reflections were cut short by her partner, who had stopped in the center of the hall.
"Miss Harlowe," he said with a disagreeable smile, "you are standing directly under the mistletoe. I suppose you know the penalty."
Grace looked at him with flashing eyes. "Mr. Hammond," she replied, flushing angrily, "you purposely halted under the mistletoe, and if for one minute you think that you can take advantage of a foolish tradition by so doing you are mistaken. When we girls coaxed Judge Putnam under the mistletoe the other night, it was merely with the view of offering a pretty courtesy to an elderly gentleman. None of our boys would think of being so silly, and I want you to distinctly understand that not one of our crowd is given to demonstrations of that sort."
"Miss Harlowe," replied Henry Hammond between his teeth, "you are an insolent, ill-bred young woman, and it is plain to be seen that you are determined to misconstrue my every action and incur my enmity. So be it, but let me warn you that my hatred is no light matter."
"Your friendship or your enmity are a matter of equal indifference to me, Mr. Hammond," answered Grace, and with a cool nod she crossed the room and joined Nora and Hippy, who were sitting on the stairs playing cats' cradle with the long silver chain of Nora's fan.
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