anything else that is
nice, and I'm afraid Emma wouldn't like me to lend it," added Annette,
who was disappointed that Mabel was not to be the Beauty.

"_I_ don't intend to act at all!" declared Mabel, beginning to braid up
her hair with a jerk, out of humor with the whole affair.

"_I_ think you are a set of cross, selfish girls to back out and keep
your nice things just because you can't _all_ have the best part.
I'm ashamed of you!" scolded Molly, standing by Merry, who was sadly
surveying her mother's old purple silk, which looked like brown in the
evening.

"I'm going to have Miss Delano's red brocade for the Queen, and I shall
ask her for the yellow-satin dress for Merry when I go to get mine, and
tell her how mean you are," said Juliet, frowning under her gilt-paper
crown as she swept about in a red table-cloth for train till the brocade
arrived.

"Perhaps you'd like to have Mabel cut her hair off, so Merry can have
that, too?" cried Susy, with whom hair was a tender point.

"Light hair isn't wanted, so Ju will have to give hers, or you'd better
borrow Miss Bat's frisette," added Mabel, with a scornful laugh.

"I just wish Miss Bat was here to give you girls a good shaking. Do let
someone else have a chance at the glass, you peacock!" exclaimed Molly
Loo, pushing Susy aside to arrange her own blue turban, out of which she
plucked the pink pompon to give Merry.

"Don't quarrel about me. I shall do well enough, and the scarlet shawl
will hide my ugly dress," said Merry, from the corner, where she sat
waiting for her turn at the mirror.

As she spoke of the shawl her eye went in search of it, and something
that she saw in the other room put her own disappointment out of her
head. Jill lay there all alone, rather tired with the lively chatter,
and the effort it cost her not to repine at being shut out from the
great delight of dressing up and acting.

Her eyes were closed, her net was off, and all the pretty black curls
lay about her shoulders as one hand idly pulled them out, while the
other rested on the red shawl, as if she loved its glowing color and
soft texture. She was humming to herself the little song of the dove and
the donjon, and something in the plaintive voice, the solitary figure,
went straight to Merry's gentle heart.

"Poor Jilly can't have any of the fun," was the first thought; then came
a second, that made Merry start and smile, and in a minute whisper
so that all but Jill could hear