The students did not appear until the bell rang. They were thankful for the last moment to finish a bit of packing or a visit. There were no study-hours,—this was one of the great occasions of the year. They did not know how narrowly they had missed having any play at all, or how its success still hung upon the slender thread of a small girl's memory.
The cheerless, unpleasant room upon which the curtain lifted gave no hint of the Christmas spirit which already excited the great school. Scrooge sat beside his table, unshaven, wizened, clad in an old dressing-gown and slippers, with a night-cap on his head. He was eating a bowl of gruel, and at the same time trying to identify the peculiar substance of which it was made, and also to keep the audience from suspecting that there was anything the matter with it. When he discovered that it was cotton, he made a resolve of revenge upon the Junior girls who had prepared it, which had nothing to do with the play. It helped him, however, to growl out maledictions upon the poor and those who relieved their distress.
It was then that he was disturbed by the clanking of chains and money-boxes, and the voice of his old partner, Marley, was heard faintly from behind the curtain which divided the front and back of the stage. Marley reproved him for his grasping, cruel spirit, his sordid struggle for wealth, and Scrooge cowered and listened in terror to the promise of the ghost that he should be visited by three others.
The curtain went down and rose almost immediately. There had been only faint applause. Scrooge had done his best, but the ghost, speaking from behind the scenes, had not the power to amuse and thrill which he would have had if he had been able to appear. Miss Ellingwood remembered, with a pang, Edward Ellis's delightful vanishing through the window.
Miss Ellingwood's face was pale. She realized that the first scene had fallen flat. And they were depending for the success of the second upon little Sarah Wenner, who had never even practiced with the rest of the cast! It had been madness in Sarah to offer, it had been worse than madness for Miss Ellingwood to accept.
She peered out from behind the scenes, her hand on Sarah's shoulder. Scrooge was in bed, his night-cap tassel nodded from his pillow. It was time for Sarah to go on. Directions trembled on Miss Ellingwood's lips, but she said nothing. It was too late now to advise.
The light was dim, and the audience could see nothing but the outlines of the old four-post bed, and a faint, tiny, white figure, which glided about, now slowly, now swiftly, once with a dash of yellow light upon it, once with a faint glow of purple. Her dress was short, her feet were sandaled, she looked even shorter than she was. The audience gasped. They thought that Edward Ellis was to play the part. Who was this sprite who moved about so lightly? They leaned forward breathlessly as the fairy thing approached Scrooge's bed, and drew the curtain back. A trembling, faltering voice issued from within.
"'Are you the spirit whose coming was foretold me?'"
It seemed to Miss Ellingwood that long moments passed before the answer came. The child had never been on any stage in all her life. Miss Ellingwood knew what stage fright was. She was suffering from it now herself. Then faintly but clearly came the answer:—
"'I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.'"