THE TRY OUT
"Will the young lady on the extreme right please come forward?" said Mr. Southard pleasantly, indicating Marian Barber, who rather timidly obeyed, taking the book he held out to her. At his request, she began to read from Orlando's entrance, in the first scene of the fourth act. She faltered a little on the first two lines, but shortly regained her courage and read on in her best manner. When she had read about a dozen lines he motioned for her to cease reading, said something to Miss Tebbs, who made an entry on her pad, and beckoned to the girl next to Marian to come forward.
Straight down the line he went, sometimes stopping a girl at her third or fourth line, rarely allowing them to read farther than the eleventh or twelfth.
Nora was the second Phi Sigma Tau to undergo the ordeal. As she briskly delivered the opening lines, the actor stopped her. Taking the book from her, he turned to the part where Touchstone, quaintly humorous, holds forth upon "the lie seven times removed."
"Read this," he said briefly, holding out the book to Nora.
Nora began and read glibly on, unconsciously emphasizing as she did so. Down one page she read and half way through the next before Mr. Southard seemed satisfied.
Then he again held conversation with Miss Tebbs, who nodded and looked smilingly toward Nora, who stood scowling faintly, rather ill-pleased at attracting so much attention.
"It looks as though Nora had made an impression, doesn't it!" whispered Jessica to Grace, who was about to reply when Mr. Southard motioned to her. Grace, who knew the scene by heart, went fearlessly forward, and read the lines with splendid emphasis. Marian and Eva Allen followed her, and acquitted themselves with credit. Then Eleanor's turn came. Handing her coat, which she had taken off and carried upon her arm, to Edna Wright, she walked proudly over, then, without a trace of self-consciousness, began the reading of the designated lines. Her voice sounded unusually clear and sweet, yet lacked something of the power of expression displayed by Grace in her rendering of the same scene. When she had finished she handed the book back with an air of studied indifference she was far from feeling. She had decided in her own mind that Rosalind was the part best suited to her, and felt that the honor now lay between herself and Grace. No other girls, with the exception of Nora, had been allowed to read as much of any scene as they two had been requested to read.
But Eleanor had reckoned without her host, for there was one girl who had not as yet come to the front. The girl was Anne Pierson, who in some mysterious manner had been all but overlooked, until Miss Tebbs spied her standing between Grace and Nora.
"Can you spare us a moment more, Mr. Southard?" said Miss Tebbs to the actor, who was preparing to leave. "You have almost missed hearing one of my best girls. Come here, Anne, and prove the truth of my words."