"Something musical, to judge from the practicing we hear. It sounds like operetta. And the juniors are having a fairy play. Miss Morgan is teaching them. What we want is something utterly and entirely different." "Exactly!" agreed Peachy, taking a drink of lemonade. "If you don't have a brain-throb we shall have to descend to an ordinary concert." "Or a scene from Shakespeare." "Or a _tableau vivant_." "And those have been done simply dozens of times." "I know," frowned Peachy. "We had 'The Trial Scene' from _The Merchant of Venice_ ourselves last carnival. We couldn't give the same stunt again. Oh, don't bother me! Let me think. How can I get ideas when you're all talking at once?" Peachy put her fingers in her ears and buried her head temporarily in the pillow, from which she appeared to draw inspiration, for in a few moments she sprang up with a bounce of rapture. "Got it!" she announced cheerily. "Let's do a toy-shop. You shall all be dressed up as toy animals and be wound up to work. Oh, I see ever such possibilities. The seniors never had _that_ at any rate." "Good!" "It sounds prime!" "What a mascot you are." "Don't breathe a word outside the form," warned Peachy. "I'll plan it all out and we'll have a rehearsal when I'm downstairs again. I guess we'll give them a surprise. Hand me my writing-pad, somebody, and a pencil. I want to get busy sketching costumes. I can see the whole thing in my mind's eye and it ought to be great." Every year in the month of March the pupils at the Villa Camellia celebrated a carnival of their own. It coincided with a local festival at Fossato, on which occasion the inhabitants were wont to make merry, dressing themselves in fantastic costumes, parading the streets, and letting off fireworks. Originally the girls had been taken to see the gay doings, but the town was often so rough that Miss Rodgers had decided it was an unsuitable entertainment for young ladies, and, to prevent disappointment, made the happy suggestion that they should keep the festival in their own grounds. So each spring the three divisions of the school vied with one another in producing some fresh surprise, and had a very interesting and amusing afternoon in the garden or gymnasium, and were too busily occupied to feel any regret at being deprived of the sight of what was going on in Fossato.