“Oh, the music for our play is too lovely!” exclaimed Lilian, entering
Lakeview Suite and starting to put away her violin.
Isabel who was visiting the girls, looked up inquiringly.
“It’s the Mendelssohn music, you know, written for the Midsummer Night’s
Dream. I wish I were playing in the orchestra. I’ve been helping
practice.”
“Couldn’t you play part of the time with them?”
“Not very well in costume. I might do it for a while, though. I don’t
come on until the third act, and the second scene at that,—Enter
Titania, with her train.”
“Come, now a rounded and a fairy song;
Then for the third part of a minute, hence;
Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds,
Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings
To make my small elves coats, and some keep back
The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders.
At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;
Then to your offices and let me rest.”
“Fine, Lilian,” said Isabel, applauding. “Are you glad you decided on
Midsummer Night’s Dream?”
“Yes, indeed; it is going to be too pretty outdoors, the fairies and
everything, and the costumes are perfectly lovely. Miss Randolph bought
new ones, because they have never given this before, and she is
gradually getting a good collection of costumes. Patty and the other
English teachers are just crazy about it.”
“I should think that they would be really crazy by the time all the
practicing and drilling are over. Don’t you think that Patty looks thin,
Cathalina?”
“Yes, Isabel, and it is no wonder. I heard that she is going to France
this summer, but I have not said a word to her about it. She will tell
us if she is.”
“Why, Lilian,” said Hilary, who was reading the play, “you are all wrong
about not coming in until the third act, second scene. It is the second
act, scene one.”
Lilian looked over Hilary’s shoulder at the text. “Sure enough. I forgot
my converse with Oberon. That is what Mrs. Norris is scolding us for,
just learning our parts, without having the whole play in mind, but we
have so many other things to do. It is a good thing that the senior
examinations are all over so early. I don’t know what I would do without
senior week. I wish Mother and Father could come for Commencement week.
They would love seeing the play and all, at least Mother would.”
“Can’t they come?”
“No, not without risking not being in New York when the boys leave. Dick
is expected to be sent over at any time now.”
“Aunt Hilary is coming,” said Hilary, “but Father and Mother will not
this time. Aunt Hilary was the one who wanted me to come to Greycliff.”
“Yes,” said Cathalina, “Hilary and I both owe our Greycliff days to the
suggestions of our aunts.”
“What part have you, Hilary?” asked Isabel.
“I’m Theseus, duke of Athens, aha! And my fair Hippolyta is Pauline,
because, as she says, they thought she was cast for an Amazon. Hippolyta
is queen of the Amazons, you know.”
“I read the play once,” said Isabel, with a laugh, “but I’ll have to
read it up before the play is given or I won’t enjoy it so much. Let me
see,—who’s Hermia?”
“Evelyn, because she is little and dark, and Lysander is Helen. Won’t it
be great?—Lysander and Hermia making love in that soft southern accent?”
“Yes, and Evelyn using her eyes as Hermia. Evelyn couldn’t help it if
she tried.”
“There is another pair of lovers—?”
“Yes, Helena, you know, who is terribly in love with Demetrius, and he
wants Hermia, till the fairies fix that all up.”
“Modern interpretation of Shakespeare by Hilary Lancaster,” murmured
Cathalina.
“Wait till you hear me say with dramatic effect as Theseus,—‘but
earthlier happy is the rose distill’d, than that which withering on the
virgin thorn, grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.’”
“Is _that_ where we get ‘single blessedness’?”
“It is. You have heard of the person, haven’t you, that didn’t like
Hamlet very well when she heard it played, ‘because it was so full of
quotations’?”
“Nor original enough, I suppose,” laughed Isabel.
“Oh, I must tell you girls something funny,” said Cathalina. “Yesterday
I was in here alone, and practicing my lines. I am the first Fairy, and
was saying the lines instead of singing them. I had just broken out with
‘You spotted snakes with double tongue,’—when I saw that new academy
freshman, who has only been here this spring, standing in the door and
looking at me with eyes as big as saucers. Whether she had knocked or
not I don’t know. I stopped, laughing, but I haven’t the least idea that
she understood at all. She gave me a message from Miss Randolph as
quickly as she could, and hurried off without letting me explain.”
“She probably thought that you were in the habit of addressing your
room-mates in that happy way,” said Isabel.
“I have wondered several times what she did think, and laughed right out
in the middle of the night last night and wakened Betty. You thought I
had lost my mind, didn’t you Betty?”
“Yes; but I was glad that you wakened me, for I was having a horrible
dream about Captain Holley’s coming back for me, and it was nice to be
wakened by somebody’s laughing.” Betty’s nerves were not what they might
be since her last experience, but the girls purposely made light of it
all.
At this moment, Diane Percy and Eloise arrived to join the company, and
Virginia peeped in to see if Isabel were there. “Come on in just a
minute, Virgie,” called Isabel. “The girls are telling about the play.
Have you a part, Diane?”
“Yes, I’m Demetrius, and Edith Lane is Helena, because she is the
tallest fair girl we have and we have to have a contrast between her and
Evelyn.”
“What are you, Eloise?”
“Oberon. Neither Lilian or I are really small enough for fairies, but in
the costumes we look smaller. I hope the play will go all right. The
girls are all really working now that the time is so near. They are
rehearsing some of the scenes now out on the campus.”
“Wouldn’t it be awful if it rained and we had to give it indoors?”
“If it rains one day, they will whisk around the program and put the
Glee Club concert on or something.”
“Just think, girls, only two more weeks now for us at Greycliff, and
then we go away forever!” This was Cathalina. “I came with tears, and I
shall probably leave in tears or something like it!”
“I certainly shall shed tears if we don’t win that debate,” said Isabel.
“You will,” said Cathalina. “That comes off next week, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, on our regular night, next Friday night. Come on, Virgie. Even
thinking of it is enough to start me thinking of the arguments.”
Isabel and Virgie departed, while Diane took exception to Cathalina’s
statement that they had two weeks still as seniors. “This is Saturday,
Cathalina, and you know that the exercises of Commencement week are cut
short this year. I don’t imagine that we shall have half the company we
usually do, either. The Inter-Society Debate will be on Friday night;
the play a week from today; Sunday, the baccalaureate sermon in the
Chapel; Monday, our honors presented, and class day exercises in the
afternoon, Glee Club concert in the evening; Tuesday, diplomas.”
“When are we going to have our society reception and our senior society
diplomas?” asked Betty.
“When _are_ we? I had forgotten that. Hilary, you are president, what
about it?”
“I was counting on the usual time, but why didn’t I think of it? Well,
it can be posted. Why wouldn’t it do to go right from the class day
exercises to the society hall. It will be appropriate then. We have
asked Patty to make a little speech and present the diplomas; then we’ll
serve lemonade and cake and ice cream. The juniors will see to it while
we are having our other exercises. They are rather short this year.”
“I think that will be a good idea, Hilary,” said Eloise. “The class day
exercises will probably take only an hour and a half. We could have the
society reception from four to six.”
“So we could. We’d better arrange it that way. I’ll call a meeting of
the executive committee Monday.”
On Monday, as it happened, another and more important matter came up. As
Cathalina sat calmly eating her cereal breakfast, a note was passed to
her. “Mercy me!” she exclaimed as she read. “Listen to this, girls.”
Betty, Hilary and Lilian, who sat nearest, looked up with interest.
“‘Dear Cathalina: Edith Lane has measles! You will have to be Helena.
Please let me see you right after breakfast.—P. Norris.’ Now isn’t that
like Patty? Takes it for granted that I will do it because it is to be
done. Lilian, you are as tall as I am, you do it.”
“No, I’m not quite as tall, but I don’t think it makes so much
difference for that reason as that I already have a part and have
learned my lines.”
“So have I.” Cathalina’s lips were curling in amusement, however, as she
reflected on her prominent part as first fairy. “How can she expect me
to learn a part in a week?”
“We haven’t any lessons,—that is one thing,” suggested Hilary. “You can
do it, Cathalina. You have heard the play several times.”
“Yes, I am familiar with the play,” said Cathalina, “but Helena has a
good deal to say, if I remember. I know four lines of hers:
“‘Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.’”
“Think what a start you have,” said Betty, her dimples beginning to
play.
“I’ll think about it,” said Cathalina, “but it shan’t spoil my
breakfast. Please pass me the cream, Betty. Mine has all disappeared
somewhere, and I like to see a little on my oatmeal.”
After breakfast Cathalina, who had hoped to escape a prominent part,
since she was not in the Dramatic Club, hunted up Mrs. Norris and
finally consented to do her best with the part of Helena.
“There are some other girls, Cathalina, who are anxious to have such a
part, but I do not feel that any one of them will do as well as you
will. You have seen the play several times in New York and know how the
different characters are represented and I don’t want this part
overdone. Edith looked the part very well, but she says the lines in an
absolutely uninteresting way, and I don’t know but it is just as well
that she has the measles, poor child. By the way, all of you must keep
away from the hospital. We can’t have an epidemic of measles starting
here just before time to start home.”
“That would be a calamity,” assented the smiling Cathalina. “All right,
Mrs. Norris, I’ll try it. Shall I come to the practices and read the
lines I do not know?”
“Yes. Would you like to go over the lines, as you learn them, with me?”
“I imagine that I’d better. I will get the other girls to hear me, too.”
“It is work for Cathalina this week,” said that young lady, as she
entered the suite after the conference with Patricia Norris.
“Good girl,” said Hilary, with approbation. “Cathalina has the right
kind of class spirit. She is right there when there is anything to be
done.”
“I do hate to do this, though, Hilary.”
“All the more credit to you, then, for doing it. Here are your first
lines,” and Hilary, who had begun to study over again her own part,
turned the pages to Helena’s first speech. “Here you are, addressing
Evelyn as Hermia:
“Call you me fair? That fair again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair, O, happy fair!”
“I _do_ like her _lines_, the words are so musical,—‘your tongue’s sweet
air more tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear’.”
“Oh, you will like it when you get at it. You ought to have heard
Dorothy Appleton rave about being Bottom, but she thinks it great fun
now. Did you see her at the last practice? She said she was not sure
which string she was pulling in the donkey’s head. She might make his
ears wiggle when his eyes ought to blink, but we told her that we didn’t
think it mattered.”
Greycliff days were taking wing. The week fairly flew till its important
close. On Friday night, the Whittiers and Emersons gathered in the
chapel for the Inter-Society Debate. Isabel, with pink cheeks and cold
hands, had bid her friends goodbye with the remark that she was marching
to her doom, but Virginia was “as calm as an oyster,” to quote Isabel.
“Do you think that Isabel was nervous enough to hurt?” asked Cathalina,
who was a little worried. “You know how sure she was over the canoe
race.”
“That was different,” replied Juliet, who sat next to Cathalina. “She
has to remember a speech this time, and while Isabel is such a fine
debater, I think she dreads this occasion. It is more important to the
girls.”
But if Isabel was nervous beforehand, when she appeared on the stage
platform she was perfectly at ease and never had debated with more
brilliance. Virginia, too, never appeared to better advantage, and
Lilian thought as she looked at the fine-looking girl on the platform,
so earnest, so well prepared, of what Greycliff had meant to Virgie
since that day when she had gone in to comfort the discouraged girl from
the Dakota ranch. It was scarcely possible to believe that Virginia was
the same girl, nor was she quite. A bigger outlook, a more unselfish
ambition and a sweeter poise was hers.
The judges were not out long, and the decision was unanimous for the
Whittier team. The annual banner, which for another year would grace the
Whittier hall, was presented by one of the trustees, and accepted by
Isabel, representing the team.
What sort of a day would Saturday be? This was the most important
consideration to which the seniors wakened that morning. Everything was
ready for the presentation of the play outdoors, and the girls had gone
to sleep on Friday night saying over their lines. There had been a
thunderstorm on Friday afternoon, but it had cleared for the evening,
and the stars came out. The evening paper had promised a good day, but
as Isabel said, you never can tell. The last practice had not gone off
very well. That was on Friday morning, in costume. But girls forgot
their speeches, girls who had never done that before, several came on at
the wrong moment, forgetting their cues, and Patty was nearly
distracted.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Norris, remember that Miss Perin was not here to help
you manage behind the scenes. Nobody will go on at the wrong time
tonight.” Lilian was trying to comfort her teacher as they happened to
meet on the way to the scene of action.
“Oh, thank you, Lilian. I am not worried now. We have everything fixed
better now, all the stage property at hand and some one in charge. Miss
Perin will attend to sending the folks on, if they forget, and I have
the text, as prompter.”
“Behind the scenes,” in the lovely spot chosen, consisted of a thick
clump of evergreens behind which a green curtain had been stretched to
screen the players. Through arching branches was the stage entrance. The
background was the woods behind Greycliff Hall and its adjacent
buildings. An even stretch of ground on the level of Greycliff Hall made
a woodland spot easy of access, yet with the wildest of surroundings.
Part of the elevation, finally resulting in what was called “high hill,”
ascended gradually from level ground, and there it was that the girls
brought cushions and newspapers and sat, on the slope, to view the play.
There were a few chairs for the faculty, ladies, alumnae and guests. The
orchestra sat at one side of the “stage,” not to obstruct the view of
the players, and were next to the evergreens before mentioned. Aunt
Hilary had arrived and occupied a place of honor next to Miss Randolph.
Girls in costume were coming up the path from Greycliff Hall, the
orchestra were tuning instruments, and the whole place was taking on a
festival appearance. Prettiest of all were the fairies, and most
ridiculous were the costumes of those taking the parts of Bottom and the
rest of the Pyramus and Thisbe players.
“I’ll not forget, Mrs. Norris,” declared Cathalina, “but I shall draw a
long breath when my part is over. However, I have had lots of fun this
week. I hate to think that all this is so nearly over.”
“‘Lots’?”
“A great deal,” corrected Cathalina. “But sometimes I rather like our
more blunt way of speaking.”
“If my girls will remember their parts tonight and not rant, I shall be
happy.”
But often the simple acting of amateurs is more attractive than that of
any but the best professionals. The cast of Greycliff’s Midsummer
Night’s Dream could have no fault to find with the appreciation of their
audience. That delightful atmosphere established itself which means
players who are enjoying their work and an audience entirely held and
entertained. Long would they remember the pretty scene.
“How did you like it, Aunt Hilary?” asked an excited Hilary, as she took
her aunt’s arm and led her back to the Hall. The rest of the suite-mates
followed, all interested in the one relative which their company
boasted.
“I thoroughly enjoyed every moment, Hilary, and I think that all the
girls did so well. Of course I was more interested in you, and in the
girls that I know and have heard so much about during these years.”
“You must come to our suite now. We are going to make some lemonade to
refresh you. The play did not take as long as I feared.”
“They cut some of the speeches, you know,” said Cathalina. “I was surely
glad to have mine cut, and Patty was kind.”
“Cathalina had to learn her part in one week, Aunt Hilary. One of the
girls who was to have the part came down with measles. Imagine it,—in
your senior year and just at Commencement! So Cathalina was asked to do
it.”
“I thought that I should hate it, but I rather enjoyed it, after all.”
“What was that perfectly heartless remark of Patty’s, Cathalina?”
“Oh, she did not mean it, but Edith had not been doing very well with
her part. No wonder, if she was coming down with measles. I remember
when I had them.”
“Have another lady-finger, Aunt Hilary. The Glee Club concert is our
last performance at Greycliff. One by one our duties lessen. Did you
like the music tonight?”
“It was beautiful. I had no idea that you would have so excellent an
orchestra.”
“It was short two good players in Lilian and Eloise tonight, but it is
really very well trained.”
“I am very fond of that music anyway, and out under the trees and stars
it sounded particularly sweet. Goodnight, girls, I am glad that I am to
have some more of Greycliff’s entertainment.”