Lloyd pressed her lips together and stood staring at the old finery around her, thinking hard. A sudden vision had come to her of this modern Cinderella, and of herself as the fairy godmother. Her eyes shone and her cheeks grew pink as she stood pondering. If she could only make an occasion, it would be easy enough to provide the coach and the costume, even the glass slippers. There lay a pair of white satin ones, beaded in tiny crystal beads that shone like dewdrops. Suppose she should play godmother and send Agnes to a ball. Suppose the shy, timid girl should look so fine in her fine feathers that people would stare at her and wonder who that beautiful creature was. Suppose a prince should be there who never would have noticed her but for the magic glass slippers, and then suppose-- Lloyd did not put the rest of the delightful daydream into words, but just stood thinking about it a long time, until her expression grew very sweet and tender over a little romance which she dreamed might grow out of her plan to give Agnes pleasure. "If I only had thought of it in time to have had a Valentine pah'ty," she exclaimed aloud, "that would have been the very thing. But it is too late now. This is the seventeenth." Then she clasped her hands delightedly as that date suggested another. "It is five days till Washington's Birthday. Maybe there will be time to get up a Martha Washington affair. I'll ask Miss Allison about it this very night at choir practice. She always has so many new ideas." Tumbling the costumes back into the trunk, helter-skelter, she danced down the stairs, impatient to tell her mother about it. But there were guests in the library who had been invited to spend the afternoon and stay to dinner, and Lloyd had no opportunity to speak of the subject that was uppermost in her thoughts. Immediately after dinner she excused herself, to slip into her red coat and furs, while Mom Beck lighted the lantern they were to carry. It was only a short distance to the Mallard place, where the choir was to meet that week, so they did not need Alec's escort this time. The wind flared their lantern as they went along the quiet country road. They could see other lights bobbing along toward them, and, as they neared the gate, Lloyd recognized Mrs. Walton's voice. She and Miss Allison were coming up with their brother Harry.