“Oh! we are going to show her the boys, and how we dress them up just like dragons,” cried Polly, “and while they are prancing around and slashing their tails at rehearsal, I’m going to keep saying, ’That’s nothing but Jasper and Ben and Clare, you know, Phronsie,’ till I get her accustomed to them.  You won’t be frightened, will you, pet, at those dear, sweet old dragons?” she ended, and getting on her knees, she looked imploringly into Phronsie’s brown eyes.

“N—­no,” said Phronsie, slowly, “not if they are really Jasper and Ben and Clare.”

“They really will be,” cried Polly, enchanted at her success, “Jasper and Ben and Clare; and they will give you a ride, and show you a cave, oh! and perfect quantities of things; you can’t think how many!”

Phronsie clapped her hands and laughed aloud in glee.

“Oh!  I don’t care if they are true dragons, Polly, I don’t,” she cried, dreadfully excited.  “Make ’em real big live ones, do; do make them big, and let me ride on their backs.”

“These will be just as real,” said Polly comfortingly, “that is, they’ll act real, only there will be boys inside of them.  Oh! we’ll have them nice, dear, don’t you fear.”

“But I’d really rather have true ones,” sighed Phronsie.

III

THE REHEARSAL

“Now, Phronsie,” said Polly, on her knees before the Princess, who was slowly evolving into “a thing of beauty,” “do hold still just a minute, dear.  There,” as she thrust in another pin, then turned her head critically to view her work, “I do hope that is right.”

Phronsie sighed.  “May I just stretch a wee little bit, Polly,” she asked timidly, “before you pin it up?  Just a very little bit?”

“To be sure you may,” said Polly, looking into the flushed little face; “I’ll tell you, you may walk over to the window and back, once; that’ll rest you and give me a chance to see what is the matter with that back drapery.”

So Phronsie, well pleased, gathered up the embyro robe of the Princess and moved off, a bewildering tangle of silver spangles and floating lace, drawn over the skirt of one of Mrs. Whitney’s white satin gowns.

“There ought to be a dash of royal purple somewhere,” said Polly, sitting on the floor to see her go, and resting her tired hands on her knees.  “Now where shall I get it, and where shall I put it when I do have it?” She wrinkled up her eyebrows a moment, lost in thought over the momentous problem.  “Oh!  I know,” and she sprang up exultingly.  “Phronsie, won’t this be perfectly lovely? we can take that piece of tissue paper Auntie gave you, and I can cut out little knots and sashes.  It is so soft, that in the gaslight they will look like silk.  How fine!”

“Can’t I be a Princess unless you sew up that purple paper?” asked Phronsie, pausing suddenly to look over her shoulder in dismay at Polly.