iosity conquered resentment.

"It'll only take me _half_ a minit to slip on my green dress," Mrs.
Slade had called to Miss Merry. "Wait fer me!"

Mrs. Brown, next door, had heard her.

"I'll come along, too," she called out.

All through the street there was a stirring behind closed blinds, a
hurried taking down of the Sunday-best and a feverish changing of shoes
and searching for gloves.

"It's all very well for Sarah Eaton to tell us to show our pride," Mrs.
Dexter had confided to Mrs. Hill, "but _I_ just said to myself nobody
done nothing to hurt me, _I_ was goin' to see for myself what Sabriny
Leavitt was havin' up there! Did you see that automobile? Purple, as
I live. My, ain't this sun hot! I've got to go slower or I'll have a
stroke."

"Every blessed woman in Freedom," cried Peter Hyde.

"Oh, how _funny_! Look at them coming. They saw the purple car.
Peter, the party is a success! Aunt Sabrina will never know. Watch me
now!" With a saucy tilt of her chin Nancy stepped down the path to
greet the first of the late comers.

"_So_ glad you have come," she murmured prettily, clasping Mrs. Slade's
warm hand. "Do come under the trees where it is cool. I am so sorry
you hurried."

In her most gracious manner Nancy presented each one in turn to Mr.
Theodore Hoffman, of New York, then carried them off to Miss Milly.

"--and Miss Hopworth! But of course you know Miss Hopworth. Doesn't
Nonie look darling to-day?" she would say to each one, with wicked
intent.

Then a sudden inspiration seized her. "Nonie should play one of her
pretend games for the master and their guests," she whispered excitedly
to Aunt Milly and Nonie and Peter Hyde.

"Wheel Aunt Milly's chair back toward those bushes--that'll be the
stage. Now, Nonie, play your best! Perhaps--perhaps the fairy
godmother is here."

After a few moments of excited consultation Peter Hyde announced in a
loud tone that, for the entertainment of the guests, a fairy fantasy,
"The Visit of the Moon-Queen," would be presented by Miss Nonie
Hopworth.

"Well, I swun, with folks here from N'York, encouragin' that girl to
act her nonsense," murmured Mrs. Sniggs to a neighbor.

But the man-from-New York's face brightened expectantly when Nancy
waved her hand out over their heads as though to touch them all with a
fairy wand. "Let my magic give you fairy eyes so that you may see that
this is _not_ the garden of Happy House but a woodland, peopled b