feel bad the very
day she has come home," the little girl assured herself; but she no
longer felt light-hearted, and when her mother patted Hero's head, and
said that she knew he had taken good care of everything in her absence,
Ruth grew even more serious.

Aunt Deborah was very quiet; but now and then her eyes rested on Ruth a
little questioningly.

"I suppose Aunt Deborah is thinking I ought to tell Mother," thought
Ruth, and was glad to hurry away as soon as they finished dinner, saying
she must be in good season, as Gilbert had set three o'clock as the hour
for the arrival of his audience.

"You must come in through the alley," Ruth reminded her mother and aunt;
for Gilbert had decided that the guests were to be a part of the
surprise for his mother.

Gilbert was arranging seats for the company just inside the door of the
stable behind a rope stretched from the front to the door of Fluff's
stall. On the previous day the children had made an excursion to Fair
Mount, and had brought home a quantity of blossoming boughs of the white
dogwood, branches of pine, and of flowering elder, and these were used
to make a background for the seats intended for the guests, to hide a
part of the grain-bin, from which Lady Washington was to wave, and made
the stable a very attractive and pleasant place. The guests could look
through the open door into the garden where blue iris, yellow daffodils
and purple lilacs were already in bloom.

When Ruth came running to the stable Winifred called out to her from the
top of the grain-bin: "Look, Ruth! Look!" and Ruth stopped in the
doorway with an exclamation of surprise. For there was Winifred wearing
Mrs. Hastings' beautiful blue mantle of rich silk, and a bonnet with
soft blue plumes, and beside her sat two other figures that, for a
moment, Ruth believed to be two strange ladies. Then she realized that
Winifred had "dressed up" bundles of hay in two old gowns of her
mother's, with their "heads" crowned by wreaths of leaves and flowers.

Winifred laughed delightedly at Ruth's astonishment. "You see, Josephine
and Cecilia were not tall enough; and of course Lady Washington ought to
have company," she explained.

Gilbert, dressed in a blue coat, yellow knee-breeches, and with a
crimson and white scarf pinned across his coat, came to the door. He
wore a cocked hat, and a wooden sword was fastened at his side, and he
endeavored to stand as tall as possible.

"Betty is waiting for y