"I shall put it back now," said Mabel, tugging at it.
"I wouldn't if I were you," said Gerald thoughtfully. "You don't
want to stay that length, do you? And unless the ring's on your
finger when the time's up, I dare say it wouldn't act."
The exalted Mabel sullenly touched the spring. The panels slowly
slid into place, and all the bright jewels were hidden. Once more
the room was merely eight-sided, panelled, sunlit, and
unfurnished.
"Now," said Mabel, "where am I to hide? It's a good thing auntie
gave me leave to stay the night with you. As it is, one of you will
have to stay the night with me. I'm not going to be left alone, the
silly height I am."
Height was the right word; Mabel had said "four yards high" and
she was four yards high. But she was hardly any thicker than when
her height was four feet seven, and the effect was, as Gerald
remarked, "wonderfully worm-like". Her clothes had, of course,
grown with her, and she looked like a little girl reflected in one of
those long bent mirrors at Rosherville Gardens, that make stout
people look so happily slender, and slender people so sadly
scraggy. She sat down suddenly on the floor, and it was like a
four-fold foot-rule folding itself up.
"It's no use sitting there, girl," said Gerald.
"I'm not sitting here," retorted Mabel; "I only got down so as to be
able to get through the door.
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