“I haven’t made one act,” I cried aghast. “I haven’t done anything at all, and I don’t know what to do.”
“You might make one now,” said Elizabeth thoughtfully, “and go talk to Adelaide Harrison.”
I glanced at Adelaide, who was sitting on the edge of her desk, absorbed in a book. “Oh, I don’t want to,” I wailed.
“If you wanted to, it wouldn’t be an act,” said Elizabeth.
“But she doesn’t want me to,” I urged. “She is reading ‘Fabiola.’”
“Then you’ll give her the chance to make an act, too,” said the relentless Elizabeth.
Argued into a corner, I turned at bay. “I won’t,” I said resolutely; to which Elizabeth replied: “Well, I wouldn’t either, in your place,” and the painful subject was dropped.
Four days before the feast the excitement had reached fever point, though the routine of school life went on with the same smooth precision. Every penny had been hoarded up for the candy fair. It was with the utmost reluctance that we bought even the stamps for our home letters, those weekly letters we were compelled to write, and which were such pale reflections of our eager and vehement selves. Perhaps this was because we knew that every line was read by Madame Bouron before it left the convent; perhaps the discipline of those days discouraged familiarity with our parents; perhaps the barrier which nature builds between the adult and the normal child was alone responsible for our lack of spontaneity. Certain it is that the stiffly written pages despatched to father or to mother every Sunday night gave no hint of our abundant and restless vitality, our zest for the little feast of life, our exaltations, our resentments, our thrice-blessed absurdities. Entrenched in the citadel of childhood, with laws of our own making, and passwords of our own devising, our souls bade defiance to the world.
If all our hopes centred in the congé, the candy fair, and the operetta,—which was to be produced on a scale of unwonted magnificence,—our time was sternly devoted to the unpitying exactions of geography. Every night we took our atlases to bed with us, under the impression that sleeping on a book would help us to remember its contents. As the atlases were big, and our pillows very small, this device was pregnant with discomfort. On the fourth night before the feast, something wonderful happened. It was the evening study hour, and I was wrestling sleepily with the mountains of Asia,—hideous excrescences with unpronounceable and unrememberable names,—when Madame Rayburn entered the room. As we rose to our feet, we saw that she looked very grave, and our minds took a backward leap over the day. Had we done anything unusually bad, anything that could call down upon us a public indictment, and was Madame Rayburn for once filling Madame Bouron’s office? We could think of nothing; but life was full of pitfalls, and there was no sense of security in our souls. We waited anxiously.
“Children,” said Madame Rayburn, “I have sorrowful news for you. Reverend Mother has been summoned to France. She sails on her feast day, and leaves for New York to-morrow.”