ggy had sat with her hands
clasped on her lap, and her head on one side, staring at the gown when
it was held out for her approval two days before, then had suddenly
risen, and rushed two steps at a time upstairs to the topmost landing, a
wide, scantily furnished space which served for a playground on wet
afternoons. An oilcloth covered the floor, a table stood in a corner,
and before each of the six doors was an aged wool rug, maroon as to
colouring, with piebald patches here and there where the skin of the
lining showed through the scanty tufts. Peggy gave a whoop of triumph,
tucked one after the other beneath her arm, and went flying down again,
dropping a mat here and there, tripping over it, and nearly falling from
top to bottom of the stairs. Hairbreadth escapes were, however, so much
a part of her daily existence that she went on her way unperturbed, and
carried her bundle into the study, where the girls sniffed derisively,
and the boys begged to know what she intended to do with all that
rubbish.

"`They that have no invention should be hanged,'" quoted Peggy,
unperturbed. "Give me a packet of pins, and I'll soon show you what I
am going to do. Dear, dear, dear, I don't know what you would do
without me! You are singularly bereft of imagination."

She tossed her pigtail over her shoulder, armed herself with the largest
pins she could find, and set to work to fasten the mats down the front
of the gown, and round the hem at the bottom, so that the wool hung in
shaggy ends over the feet. The skins were thick, the heads of the pins
pressed painfully into her fingers, but she groaned and worked away
until the border was arranged for stitching, and could be tried on to
show the effect.

"Perfectly splendid!" was the verdict of the beholders. And so the
matter of Shylock's gown was settled; but his beard still remained to be
provided, and was by no means an easy problem to solve.

"Tow!" suggested Mellicent; but the idea was hooted by all the others.
The idea of Shylock as a blonde was too ridiculous to be tolerated.
False hair was not to be bought in a small village, and Maxwell's
youthful face boasted as yet only the faintest shadow of a moustache.

The question was left over for consideration, and an inspiration came
the same afternoon, when Robert hurled one of the roller-like cushions
of the sofa at Oswald's head, and Oswald, in catching it, tore loose a
portion of the covering.

"Now you've done it