"You've evidently not been in Wales. Have you never heard of the great Welsh Eisteddfods, where all the famous choirs go and sing against each other for prizes?"
"Oh, a choral festival!"
"No, not quite that, because there are solos besides. In a real genuine big national Eisteddfod there are departments for painting and for poetry. They make bards, you know, and give them Bardic chairs. Well, we can't do all that in one afternoon; we have to take each branch separately, so the music's to come first. We decided that each school is to learn the part song, 'Now Cheerful Spring Returns', and to sing it one after another. Mr. Jordan, from the Freiburg College of Music, is to be asked to judge; he will give so many marks to each choir, for correctness, tone, general expression, &c. Then each school is to give a ten-minutes' concert, consisting of a few pieces by its brightest stars. These will also be judged and marked, so much for each performer. The totals will be added to the choir scores, and then we shall have the excitement of seeing which school comes out top."
"St. Cyprian's will! It must!"
"We'd better not make too sure. There are some clever girls at the Anglo-German, I hear, and the Templeton 'Choral' is good."
"What we've got to do," said Lottie Lowman, "is to learn our part song, and practise it for all we're worth. Hadn't we better decide first who's to be choir-mistress? Shall we put it to the vote?"
There was little hesitation amongst the girls. They voted almost solidly for Lottie. Since her election as delegate for the Alliance she had taken such a principal part in the musical society that everybody was ready to follow her lead. There were a few dissenting voices, who ventured to suggest that her style was not of the best, nor truly representative of the musical standard of St. Cyprian's, but these were completely overwhelmed by the majority. Lottie, who had already on her own initiative organized a choir, was surely the most fitted to look after the laurels of the school, and might be trusted to undertake the teaching of the part song. There now remained the programme of the ten-minutes' concert to be discussed.
"It's such a fearfully short time!" growled Elizabeth Chalmers.
"Of course it is," returned Lottie, "but you see six schools with ten minutes each make an hour. The part songs will take half an hour, and allowing another half-hour for judging and intervals between pieces, we get two hours, and that's the limit. No, each school has promised on its honour not to exceed the ten minutes. Indeed, we arranged that to do so would mean to be disqualified from the competition. It seemed the only fair way."
"Then we must cram all the best talent of the school into those precious ten minutes."