"Then that's settled," exclaimed Frank, as usual carrying Fay and Annabel with him on the wings of his enthusiasm. "It will be the greatest fun in the world! We'll get the Loxleys to come and stay here and help us with the principal parts, and we can train the choir-boys and the village children to do the crowds and the dances and things like that. It will be simply top-hole."
"But where should we have it?" asked Annabel, breathless with the rapidity of her flight.
"In the garden, of course: I'll show you an ideal spot. The audience will sit on rows of chairs on the lawn, and the stage will be on that, raised piece at the far end which sticks out into the shrubbery, and the actors will come on from behind the rhododendrons.
"And what play shall you act?" asked my sister, still gasping.
"It must be one of Shakspere's," said Arthur; "I never heard of a Pastoral Play that wasn't Shakspere's."
"And Shakspere's are sufficiently classical and improving and respectable," Fay chimed in, "to be in the same galère as the Parish Nurse."
Annabel beamed. "Fay is quite right: it would never do to have anything that was at all doubtful or risky in connection with the Parish Nursing Fund; but Shakspere's Plays almost count as lesson-books, they are so educational and instructive; they are regularly studied at girls' schools, and were even in my schooldays. I have forgotten it all since, but we read a good deal of Shakspere when I was at school, and different girls took the different parts, which made it so much more interesting."
I daren't look at Fay, for fear of seeing and responding to an irreverent smile. "Shakespere is evidently the man for the place," I said.
"I always think he was a very clever writer," continued Annabel, "and nice-looking too, to judge from his portraits, with quite a distinct look of Reggie—especially about the beard."
"I am afraid the resemblance ended there," I sighed, "and did not ascend to the brain."