Mrs. Sandford was
sure that the angel's wings would make a good representation, which
Daisy was slow to believe; near by, they looked so very like gauze and
pasteboard! They were arranged, at any rate, to appear as if they grew
out of her shoulders; she was arrayed in flowing white draperies over
her own little cambrick frock; and then she was ready. Hamilton came in.
He was to be the young man in the picture. Daisy liked his appearance
well. But when Preston followed him, she felt unspeakably shocked.
Preston was well got up, in one respect; he looked frightful. He wore a
black mask, ugly but not grotesque; and his whole figure was more like
the devil in the picture than Daisy had imagined it could be. She did
not like the whole business at all. There was no getting out of it now;
the picture must be given; so the performers were placed.
Hamilton and Preston sat on two sides of a chess-board, and behind them
the little angel stood watching the game. Mrs. Sandford was right. By a
skilful placing and shielding of the lamps, the lights were thrown
broadly where they ought to be, on faces and draperies, leaving the
gauze wings of the angel in such obscurity that they just shewed as it
was desired they should. The effect was extremely good, and even
artistic. The little angel herself was not in full light; it was through
a shade of gloom that her grave face of concern looked down upon the
game on the chess-board. Truly Daisy looked concerned and grave. She
thought she did not like to play such things as this.
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