'Yes, the effect is going to be perfectly gorgeous!' exclaimed Polly,
clasping her hands in anticipation. 'How many have we? Ten? Oh,
that's splendid; and how many candles?'

'As many as we care to use,' Phil answered, from the top of the
ladder where he was at work. 'And look at my arrangement for holding
them to these trees. Aren't they immense?'

'By the way,' said Bell, 'don't forget the mossy banks under those
trees, for stage seats; and make me some kind of a thing on the left
side, to swoon on when I sniff Orlando's gory handkerchief.'

'A couple of rocks,' suggested Jack.

'Not exactly,' replied the critical Rosalind, with great dignity. 'I
am black and blue already from practising my faint, and I expect to
shriek with pain when I fall to-morrow night.'

'St. Jacob's Oil relieves stiffened joints, smooths the wrinkles from
the brow of care, soothes lacerated feelings, and 'ushes the 'owl of
hinfancy,' remarked Geoffrey serenely, as he prepared to build the
required mossy banks.

'My dear cousin (there are times when I am glad it is only second
cousin), have you a secret contract to advertise a vulgar patent
medicine? or why this eloquence?' laughed Bell.

'And, Jack,' suggested Polly, 'you don't seem to be doing anything;
fix a stump for me to sit on while Orlando and Rosalind are making
love.'