To the scholars the request was evidently not distasteful; the more tuneful were gathering together, and the mistress took her station among them, all as if the exhibition were no novelty. Lucilla, laying her hand on the victim’s arm, said, ‘Come, don’t be nervous, or what will you do to-morrow? Come.’
‘“Goddess of the Silver Bow,”’ suggested Owen. ‘Wasn’t it that which your mother disapproved, Fanny, because it was worshipping idols to sing about great Diana of the Ephesians?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said rather a conceited voice from the prettiest of the elder girls; ‘and you told us it was about Phœbe Bright, and gave her the blue and silver ribbon.’
‘And please, sir,’ said another less prepossessing damsel, ‘Mrs. Jenkyns took it away, and I said I’d tell you.’
Owen shrugged up his shoulders with a comical look, saying, as he threw her a shilling, ‘Never mind; there’s a silver circle instead of a bow—that will do as well. Here’s a rival goddess for you, Phœbe; two moons in a system.’
The girls were in a universal titter, the mistress with her eyes cast down, blushing more than ever. Lucilla muttered an amused but indignant, ‘For shame, Owen!’ and herself gave the key-note. The performance was not above the average of National School melody, but no sooner was it over, than Owen named, in an under-tone, another song, which was instantly commenced, and in which there joined a voice that had been still during the first, but which soon completely took the lead. And such a voice, coming as easily as the notes of the nightingale from the nobly-formed throat, and seeming to fill the room with its sweet power! Lucilla’s triumph was complete; Honor’s scruples were silenced by the admiring enjoyment, and Phœbe was in a state of rapture. The nervous reluctance had given way to the artistic delight in her own power, and she readily sang all that was asked for, latterly such pieces as needed little or no support from the children—the ‘Three Fishers’ Wives’ coming last, and thrilling every one with the wondrous pathos and sadness of the tones that seemed to come from her very heart.
It seemed as if they would never have come away, had not
Mr. Prendergast had pity on the restless movements of some of the younglings, who, taking no part in the display, had leisure to perceive that the clock had struck their hour of release, and at the close of ‘The Fishers’ Wives,’ he signed to Lucilla to look at the hour.
‘Poor little things!’ said she, turning round to the gaping and discontented collection, ‘have we used you so ill? Never mind.’ Again using her bulrush to tickle the faces that looked most injured, and waken them into smiles—‘Here’s the prison house open,’ and she sprang out. ‘Now—come with a whoop and come with a call—I’ll give my club to anybody that can catch me before I get down to the vicarage garden.’
Light as the wind, she went bounding flying across the churchyard like a butterfly, ever and anon pausing to look round, nod, and shake her sceptre, as the urchins tumbled confusedly after, far behind, till closing the gate, she turned, poised the reed javelin-wise in the air, and launched it among them.