The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation by Annie Fellows Johnston

LLOYD sat on the window-seat of the stair-landing, looking out on the / bare February landscape. She was thinking of the poem she had learned / three weeks before, on the afternoon of Miss Sarah's visit, and it made / her dissatisfied. When one was all a-tingle, as she had been, with a / high purpose to help ease the burden of the world and make undying music / in it, and when one longed to do big, heroic deeds and had ambitions / high enough to reach the stars, it was hard to be content with the / commonplace opportunities that came her way.

The things she had been doing seemed so paltry. To carry a glass of / jelly to the Crisps, a pot of pink hyacinths to Miss Marietta, to write / a letter for Aunt Cindy, to sit for an hour with Mrs. Bisbee, -- these all / were so trivial and pitifully small that she felt a sense of disgust / with herself and her efforts. Yawning and swinging her foot, she sat in / the window-seat several minutes longer, then started aimlessly / up-stairs to her room. In the upper hall the door leading into the attic / stairway stood open, and for no reason save that she had nothing else to / do, she began to mount the steps. She had not been up in the attic since / Christmas week, when she and Rob had gone to finish his Christmas hunt.

She stood looking around her an instant, then, moved by some / unaccountable impulse, drew out the chest containing the fancy-dress / costumes they had used in so many plays and tableaux. One by one she / shook them out and hung them over Rob's headless hobby-horse, when she / had finished examining them. There were the velvet knickerbockers and / blouse she had worn as Little Boy Blue at the Hallowe'en party at the / Seminary. There was Betty's Dresden Shepherdess dress, and the / godmother's gown, and the long trailing robe of the Princess Winsome. / Even the little tulle dress she had worn as the Queen of Hearts at / Ginger's Valentine party, years ago, came out of the chest as she dived / deeper into its contents, and a star-spangled costume of red, white, and / blue, in which she had fluttered as the Goddess of Liberty one Fourth of / July.

Slippers and buckles and plumes, fans and gloves and artificial / flowers, were piled up all around her. The hobby-horse was hidden under / a drapery of velvet and lace and silk. Still the chest held a number of / old party gowns that had never been cut down to fit their childish / revels.

As Lloyd shook them out, thinking of the gay scenes they had been a part / of, the picture of Agnes Waring in her worn jacket and shabby shoes / flashed across her mind, followed by Mrs. Bisbee's remark: "She's never / had any of the pleasures that most girls have. Twenty-five years old, / and to my certain knowledge she's never had a beau or been to a big / party, or travelled farther than Louisville."

Lloyd pressed her lips together and stood staring at the old finery / around her, thinking hard. A sudden vision had come to her of this / modern Cinderella, and of herself as the fairy godmother. Her eyes shone / and her cheeks grew pink as she stood pondering. If she could only make / an occasion, it would be easy enough to provide the coach and the / costume, even the glass slippers. There lay a pair of white satin ones, / beaded in tiny crystal beads that shone like dewdrops. Suppose she / should play godmother and send Agnes to a ball. Suppose the shy, timid / girl should look so fine in her fine feathers that people would stare / at her and wonder who that beautiful creature was. Suppose a prince / should be there who never would have noticed her but for the magic glass / slippers, and then suppose --

Lloyd did not put the rest of the delightful daydream into words, but / just stood thinking about it a long time, until her expression grew very / sweet and tender over a little romance which she dreamed might grow out / of her plan to give Agnes pleasure.

"If I only had thought of it in time to have had a Valentine pah'ty," / she exclaimed aloud, "that would have been the very thing. But it is too / late now. This is the seventeenth." Then she clasped her hands / delightedly as that date suggested another. "It is five days till / Washington's Birthday. Maybe there will be time to get up a Martha / Washington affair. I'll ask Miss Allison about it this very night at / choir practice. She always has so many new ideas."

Tumbling the costumes back into the trunk, helter-skelter, she danced / down the stairs, impatient to tell her mother about it. But there were / guests in the library who had been invited to spend the afternoon and / stay to dinner, and Lloyd had no opportunity to speak of the subject / that was uppermost in her thoughts. Immediately after dinner she / excused herself, to slip into her red coat and furs, while Mom Beck / lighted the lantern they were to carry.

It was only a short distance to the Mallard place, where the choir was / to meet that week, so they did not need Alec's escort this time. The / wind flared their lantern as they went along the quiet country road. / They could see other lights bobbing along toward them, and, as they / neared the gate, Lloyd recognized Mrs. Walton's voice. She and Miss / Allison were coming up with their brother Harry.

"Is that you, Lloyd?" called Mrs. Walton, as they drew nearer. "I hoped / you would come early, for I have a letter from the girls that I know you / will want to read. They are full of preparations for a grand affair to / be given on the twenty-second, -- a Martha Washington reception. As usual, / Kitty wants to depart from the accustomed order of things, and have a / costume in George's honour, instead of Martha's. She says why not, as / long as it is his birthday. She's painted a picture of the dress she has / concocted for the occasion. It is green tarlatan dotted all over with / little silver paper hatchets, and trimmed with garlands and bunches of / artificial cherries."