The Vanderkists all began life as very pretty little girls, but showed more or less of the Hollander ancestry as they grow up.  Only Franceska, content with her Dutch name, had shot up into a beautiful figure, together with the fine features and complexion of the Underwood twins, and the profuse golden flax hair of her aunt Angela, so that she took them all by surprise in the pretty dress presented by Cousin Marilda, and chosen by Emilia.  Sophy was round and short, as nearly plain as one with the family likeness could be, but bright and joyous, and very proud of her young sister.  It was a merry evening.

In fact, Lance himself was so much carried away by the spirit of the thing, and so anxious about the performance, that he made all the rest, including Clement, join in singing Autolycus’s song, which was to precede the procession, to a new setting of his own, before they dispersed.

But Lance was beginning to dress in the morning when a knock came to his door.

“A note from Mr. Flight, please, sir.”

The note was—-"Circus and Schnetterlings gone off in the night!  Shop closed!  Must performance be given up?”

The town was all over red and blue posters!  But Lance felt a wild hope for the future, and a not ill-founded one for the present.  He rushed into his clothes, first pencilling a note—-

“Never say die.  L. 0.  U.”

Then he hurried off, and sent up a message to Miss Franceska Vanderkist, to come and speak to him, and he walked up and down the sitting-room where breakfast was being spread, like a panther, humming Prospero’s songs, or murmuring vituperations, till Franceska appeared, a perfect picture of loveliness in her morning youthful freshness.

“Francie, there’s no help for it.  You must take Mona!  She has absconded!”

“Uncle Lance!”

“Yes, gone off in the night; left us lamenting.”

“The horrible girl!”

“Probably not her fault, poor thing!  But that’s neither here nor there.  I wish it was!”

“But I thought-—”

“It is past thinking now, my dear.  Here we are, pledged.  Can’t draw back, and you are the only being who can save us!  You know the part.”

“Yes, in a way.”

“You did it with me at home.”

“Oh yes; but, Uncle Lance, it would be too dreadful before all these people.”

“Never mind the people.  Be Mona, and only think of Alaster and Angus.”

“But what would mamma say, or Aunt Wilmet?  And Uncle Clem?” each in a more awe-stricken voice.

“I’ll tackle them.”

“I know I shall be frightened and fail, and that will be worse.”

“No, it won’t, and you won’t.  Look here, Francie, this is not a self-willed freak for our own amusement.  The keeping up the Church schools here depends upon what we can raise.  I hate bazaars.  I hate to have to obtain help for the Church through these people’s idle amusement, but you and I have not two or three thousands to give away to a strange place in a lump; but we have our voices.  ’Such as I have give I thee,’ and this ridiculous entertainment may bring in fifty or maybe a hundred.  I don’t feel it right to let it collapse for the sake of our own dislikes.”