She turned to see who was on her other hand. A row of three small children
stretched from her to Mrs. Gerrish, whom she did not recognise at first.
"Oh, Emmeline!" she said; and then, for want of something else, she added,
"Where is Mr. Gerrish? Isn't he coming?"
"He was detained at the store," said Mrs. Gerrish, with cold importance;
"but he will be here. May I ask, Annie," she pursued solemnly, "how you got
here?"
"How did I get here? Why, through the windows. Didn't you?"
"May I ask who had charge of the arrangements?"
"I don't know, I'm sure," said Annie. "I suppose Mrs. Munger."
A burst of music came from the dense shadow into which the group of
evergreens at the bottom of the tennis-court deepened away from the glister
of the electrics. There was a deeper hush; then a slight jarring and
scraping of a chair beyond Mrs. Gerrish, who leaned across her children and
said, "He's come, Annie--right through the parlour window!" Her voice was
lifted to carry above the music, and all the people near were able to share
the fact that righted Mrs. Gerrish in her own esteem.
From the covert of the low pines in the middle of the scene Miss Northwick
and Mr. Brandreth appeared hand in hand, and then the place filled with
figures from other apertures of the little grove and through the artificial
wings at the sides, and walked the minuet. Mr. Fellows, the painter, had
helped with the costumes, supplying some from his own artistic properties,
and mediævalising others; the Boston costumers had been drawn upon by the
men; and they all moved through the stately figures with a security which
discipline had given them. The broad solid colours which they wore took the
light and shadow with picturesque effectiveness; the masks contributed a
sense of mystery novel in Hatboro', and kept the friends of the dancers
in exciting doubt of their identity; the strangeness of the audience to
all spectacles of the sort held its judgment in suspense. The minuet
was encored, and had to be given again, and it was some time before the
applause of the repetition allowed the characters to be heard when the
partners of the minuet began to move about arm in arm, and the drama
properly began. When the applause died away it was still not easy to hear;
a boy in one of the trees called, "Louder!" and made some of the people
laugh, but for the rest they were very orderly throughout.