The suggestion was made playfully, but Betty looked dreamily out to sea, her face radiant.  The longing to do something to please her godmother and make her proud of her was the first impulse that thrilled her, but as she began to search her brain for a plot, the joy of the work itself made her forget everything else, even the passing of time.  She was amazed when Lloyd called to her that they were going down to lunch.  She had sat the entire morning wrapped in her steamer-rug, looking out across the water with far-seeing eyes.  As the blue waves rose and fell, her thoughts had risen and swayed to their rhythmic motion, and begun to shape themselves into rhyme.  Line after line was taking form, and she wished impatiently that Lloyd had not called her.  How could one be hungry when some inward power, past understanding, was making music in one’s soul?

She followed Lloyd down to the table like one in a trance, but the spell was broken for awhile by Lloyd’s persistent chatter.

“You know there’s all sort of things you could have,” she suggested, “if you wanted to use them in the piece.  Tarbaby and the Filipino pony, and we could even borrow the beah from Fairchance if you wanted anything like Beauty and the Beast.  We had that once though, at Jonesy’s benefit, so maybe you wouldn’t want to use it again.”

“There’s to be a knight in it,” answered Betty, “and he’ll be mounted in one scene.  So we may need one of the ponies.”  Then she turned to her godmother.  “Do you suppose there is a spinning-wheel anywhere in the neighbourhood that we could borrow?”

“Yes, I have one of my great-grandmother’s stored away in the trunk-room.  You may have that.”

The Little Colonel shrugged her shoulders impatiently.  “Oh, I can’t wait to know what you’re goin’ to do with a spinnin’-wheel in the play.  Tell me now, Betty.”

But the little playwright only shook her head “I’m not sure myself yet.  But I keep thinking of the humming of the wheel, and a sort of spinning-song keeps running through my head.  I thought, too, it would help to make a pretty scene.”

“You’re goin’ to put Hero in it, aren’t you?” was the Little Colonel’s question.

“Oh, Lloyd!  I can’t,” cried Betty, in dismay.  “A dog couldn’t have a part with princes and witches and fairies.”

“I don’t see why not,” persisted Lloyd.  “I sha’n’t take half the interest if he isn’t in it.  I think you might put him in, Betty,” she urged.  “I’d do as much for you, if it was something you had set your heart on. Please, Betty!” she begged.

“But he won’t fit anywhere!” said Betty, in a distressed tone.  “I’d put him in, gladly, if he’d only go, but, don’t you see, Lloyd, he isn’t appropriate.  It would spoil the whole thing to drag him in.”

“I don’t see why,” said Lloyd, a trifle sharply.  “Isn’t it going to be a Red Cross entahtainment, and isn’t Hero a Red Cross dog?  I think it’s very appropriate for him to have a part, even one of the principal ones.”