“Of course not, and it’s only one reason why you are coming,” said Betty tactfully. “Now Alice, you must bring in my skirt. I have to walk so slowly in all these things, and it must be almost ten.”
When Sir Archibald Ames, villain, had been transformed into a demure little maiden with rumpled hair and a high, stiff collar showing above her rain-coat, Betty took her departure. A wave of literary and dramatic enthusiasm had inundated the Chapin house. The girls were constantly suggesting theme topics to one another–which unfortunately no one but Mary Brooks could use, at least until the next semester; for in the regular freshman English classes, subjects were always assigned. And they were planning theatre parties galore, to see Jefferson, Maude Adams, and half a dozen others if they came to Harding. Betty, who had a happy faculty of keeping her head just above such passing waves, smiled to herself as she hurried across the dark campus.
“Next week, when our play is over it will be something else,” she thought. Rachel was already interested in basket-ball and had prospects of being chosen for the freshman class team. Eleanor had been practicing hard on her guitar, hoping to “make” the mandolin club; and was dreadfully disappointed at finding that according to a new rule freshmen were ineligible and that her entrance conditions would have excluded her in any case.
“So many things to do,” sighed Betty, who had given up a hockey game that afternoon to study history. “I suppose we’ve got to choose,” she added philosophically. “But I choose to be an all-around girl, like Dorothy King. I can’t sing though. I wonder what my one talent is.
“Helen,” she said, as she opened her door, “have you noticed that all college girls have one particular talent? I wonder what ours will turn out to be. See what I have for the play.”
Helen, who looked tired and heavy-eyed, inspected the opera hat listlessly. “I think your talent is getting the things you want,” she said, “and I guess I haven’t any. It’s quarter of ten.”
CHAPTER VIII
AFTER THE PLAY
“Sherlock Holmes” was quite as exciting as Miss Madison had anticipated. Most college plays, except the elaborate ones given in the gymnasium, which are carefully learned, costumed and rehearsed, and supervised by a committee from the faculty–are amusing little farces in one or two short scenes. “Sherlock Holmes,” on the other hand, was a four act, blood-curdling melodrama, with three different stage settings, an abundance of pistol shots, a flash-light fire, shrieks and a fainting fit on the part of the heroine, the raiding of a robbers’ den in the dénouement, and “a lot more excitement all through than there is in Mr. Gillette’s play,” as Mary modestly informed her caste. It was necessarily cruder, as it was far more ambitious, than the commoner sort of amateur play; but the audience, whether little freshmen who had seen few similar performances, or upper class girls who had seen a great many and so fully appreciated the novelty of this one, were wildly enthusiastic. Every actress, down to Helen, who made a very stiff and stilted “Buttons,” and Rachel and Mary Rich who appeared in the robbers’ den scene as Betty’s female accomplices, and in the heroine’s drawing-room as her wicked mother and her stupid maid respectively, was rapturously received; and Dr. Holmes and Sir Archibald, whose hat was decidedly the hit of the evening, were forced to come before the curtain. Finally, in response to repeated shouts for “author,” Mary Brooks appeared, flushed and panting from her vigorous exertions as prompter, stage manager, and assistant dresser, and informed the audience that owing to the kindness of Mrs. Chapin there was lemon-ice in the dining-room, and would every one please go out there, so that this awful mess,–with a comprehensive wave of her hand toward the ruins of the robbers’ den piled on top of the heroine’s drawing-room furniture, which in turn had been a rearrangment of Dr. Holmes’s study,–could be cleared up, and they could dance there later?
At this the audience again applauded, sighed to think that the play was over, and then joyfully adjourned to the dining-room to eat Mrs. Chapin’s ice and examine the actors at close range. All these speedily appeared, except Helen, who had crept up-stairs quite unnoticed the moment her part was finished, and Eleanor, who, hunting up Betty, explained that she had a dreadful headache and begged Betty to look after her guests and not for anything to let them come up-stairs to find her. Betty, who was busily washing off her “fierce frown” at the time, sputtered a promise through the mixture of soap, water and vaseline she was using, delivered the message, assured herself that the guests were enjoying themselves, and forgot all about Eleanor until half-past nine when every one had gone and she came up to her room to find Helen in bed and apparently fast asleep, with her face hidden in the pillows.