But Nora looked very cross; and as Jane persisted in giggling, the success of that picture was not quite excellent this time.

“Nora is the most like a Jewess—­” Theresa remarked.

“O, Nora will make a very good maid of honour by and by,” Mrs. Sandford replied.

But Nora had her own thoughts.

“Daisy, how shall I be dressed?” she inquired, when Daisy was disrobed of her magnificence and at leisure to talk.

“I don’t know.  O, in some nice way,” said Daisy, getting into her corner of the couch again.

“Yes, but shall I—­shall Jane and I have bracelets, and a girdle, and something on our heads too?”

“No, I suppose not.  The queen of course is most dressed, Nora; you know she must be.”

“I should like to have one dress,” said Nora.  “I am not anything at all.  All the fun is in the dress.  You are to have four dresses.”

“Well, so are you to have four.”

“No, I am not.  What four?”

“This one, you know; and Red Riding-hood—­and the Princes in the Tower—­and Cinderella.”

“I am to be only one of the ugly sisters in Cinderella—­I don’t believe aunt Frances will give her much of a dress; and I hate Red Riding-hood; and the Princes in the Tower are not to be dressed at all.  They are covered up with the bed-clothes.”

“Nora,” said Daisy softly,—­“would you like to be dressed as John Alden?”

“As what?” said Nora, in no very accommodating tone of voice.

“John Alden—­that Puritan picture, you know, with the spinning wheel.  I am to be Priscilla.”

“A boy!  Do you think I would be dressed like a boy?” cried Nora in dudgeon.  And Daisy thought she would not, if the question were asked her; and had nothing more to answer.

So the practising went on, with good success on the whole.  The little company met every other day; and dresses were making, and postures were studied, and costumes were considered and re-considered.  Portia and Bassanio got to be perfect.  So did Alfred in the neat-herd’s cottage—­very nearly.  Nora, however she grumbled, blew her cakes energetically; Preston and Eloise made a capital old man and woman, she with a mutch cap and he with a bundle of sticks on his head; while Alexander Fish with his long hair and rather handsome face sat very well at the table hearing his rebuke for letting the cakes burn.  Alexander was to have a six-foot bow in hand, which he and Hamilton were getting ready:  and meanwhile practised with an umbrella.  But the tableau was very good.  Most of the others went very well.  Still Daisy was greatly tried by John Alden’s behaviour, and continued to look so severe in the picture as to draw out shouts of approving laughter from the company, who did not know that Alexander Fish was to be thanked for it.  And Nora was difficult to train in Queen Esther.  She wore obstinately a look of displeased concern for herself, and no concern at all for her fainting mistress.  Which on the whole rather impaired the unity of the action, and the harmony of the general effect.