“What is all that for?” said Nora.

“O, that is to shew the pictures nicely.  They will look a great deal better than if all the room and the books could be seen behind them.”

“Why?”

“I suppose they will look more like pictures.  By and by all those lights on the stand will be lighted.  And we shall dress in the library, you know,—­nobody will be in it,—­and in the room on the other side of the hall.  All the things are brought down there.”

“Daisy,” said Nora looking at the imposing green baize screen, “aren’t you afraid?”

“Are you?” said Daisy.

“Yes—­I am afraid I shall not do something right, or laugh, or something.”

“O, but you must not laugh.  That would spoil the picture.  And Mrs. Sandford and Preston will make everything else right.  Come and see the crown for Ahasuerus!”

So they ran across the hall to the room of fancy dresses.  Here Ella presently joined them with her sister, and indeed so many others of the performers that Preston ordered them all out.  He was afraid of mischief, he said.  They trooped back to the library.

“When are they going to begin?” said Nora.

“I don’t know.  O, by and by.  I suppose we shall have tea and coffee first.  People at a party must get through that.”

To await this proceeding, and indeed to share in it, the little company adjourned to the drawing-room.  It was filling fast.  All the neighbourhood had been asked, and all the neighbourhood were very glad to come, and here they were, pouring in.  Now the neighbourhood meant all the nice people within ten miles south and within ten miles north; and all that could be found short of some seven or eight miles east.  There was one family that had even come from the other side of the river.  And all these people made Melbourne House pretty full.  Happily it was a very fine night.

Daisy was standing by the table, for the little folks had tea at a table, looking with a face of innocent pleasure at the scene and the gathering groups of people, when a hand laid gentle hold of her and she found herself drawn within the doctor’s arm and brought up to his side.  Her face brightened.

“What is going on, Daisy?”

“Preston has been getting up some tableaux, Dr. Sandford, to be done by the young people.”

“Are you one of the young people?”

“They have got me in,” said Daisy.

“Misled by your appearance?  What are you going to play, Daisy?”

Daisy ran off to a table and brought him a little bill of the performances.  The doctor ran his eye over it.

“I shall know what it means, I suppose, when I see the pictures.  What is this ‘Game of Life?’”

“It is Retsch’s engraving,” Daisy answered, as sedately as if she had been forty years old.

“Retsch! yes, I know him—­but what does the thing mean?”

“It is supposed to be the devil playing with a young man—­for his soul,” Daisy said very gravely.