Then Thorny, looking much excited, appeared to make the following request:  “As one of the actors in the next piece is new to the business, the company must all keep as still as mice, and not stir till I give the word.  It’s perfectly splendid! so don’t you spoil it by making a row.”

“What do you suppose it is?” asked every one, and listened with all their might to get a hint, if possible.  But what they heard only whetted their curiosity and mystified them more and more.  Bab’s voice cried in a loud whisper, “Isn’t Ben beautiful?” Then there was a thumping noise, and Miss Celia said, in an anxious tone, “Oh, do be careful,” while Ben laughed out as if he was too happy to care who heard him, and Thorny bawled “Whoa!” in a way which would have attracted attention if Lita’s head had not popped out of her box, more than once, to survey the invaders of her abode, with a much astonished expression.

“Sounds kind of circusy, don’t it?” said Sam to Billy, who had come out to receive the compliments of the company and enjoy the tableau at a safe distance.

“You just wait till you see what’s coming.  It beats any circus I ever saw,” answered Billy, rubbing his hands with the air of a man who had seen many instead of but one.

“Ready?  Be quick and get out of the way when she goes off!” whispered Ben, but they heard him and prepared for pistols, rockets or combustibles of some sort, as ships were impossible under the circumstances, and no other “she” occurred to them.

A unanimous “O-o-o-o!” was heard when the curtain rose, but a stern “Hush!” from Thorny kept them mutely staring with all their eyes at the grand spectacle of the evening.  There stood Lita with a wide flat saddle on her back, a white head-stall and reins, blue rosettes in her ears, and the look of a much-bewildered beast in her bright eyes.  But who the gauzy, spangled, winged creature was, with a gilt crown on its head, a little bow in its hand, and one white slipper in the air, while the other seemed merely to touch the saddle, no one could tell for a minute, so strange and splendid did the apparition appear.  No wonder Ben was not recognized in this brilliant disguise, which was more natural to him than Billy’s blue flannel or Thorny’s respectable garments.  He had so begged to be allowed to show himself “just once,” as he used to be in the days when “father” tossed him up on bare-backed old General, for hundreds to see and admire, that Miss Celia had consented, much against her will, and hastily arranged some bits of spangled tarletan over the white cotton suit which was to simulate the regulation tights.  Her old dancing slippers fitted, and gold paper did the rest, while Ben, sure of his power over Lita, promised not to break his bones, and lived for days on the thought of the moment when he could show the boys that he had not boasted vainly of past splendors.

Before the delighted children could get their breath, Lita gave signs of her dislike to the foot-lights, and, gathering up the reins that lay on her neck, Ben gave the old cry, “Houp-la!” and let her go, as he had often done before, straight out of the coach-house for a gallop round the orchard.