“Oh, Miss Harlowe,” she called, “You are the very person we have been wishing for.” It was Cecil Ferris who spoke. Nettie Weyburn, Louise Sampson, Mary Reynolds, Evelyn Ward and Hilda Moore made up the rest of the sextette. “We are wondering if it wouldn’t be a good plan to give our grand revue directly after the Easter vacation. It will be our last entertainment this year, because after Easter the weather begins to grow warm and the girls like to be outdoors. If you would help us plan it, then those of us who live here, and are going to take part in it, can be studying and rehearsing during the vacation. Of course, Evelyn won’t be with us, but she will help us before she goes to New York. When she comes back she can give us the finishing touches. Here is the programme as far as we have planned it. We are awfully short of features.”
Cecil handed Grace a sheet of paper on which were jotted several items. There was a sketch written by Mary Reynolds, “The Freshman on the Top Floor,” a pathetic little story of a lonely freshman. Gertrude Earle, a demure, dreamy-eyed girl, the daughter of a musician, was down for a piano solo. There was to be a sextette, a chorus and a troupe of dancing girls. Kathleen West had written a clever little playlet “In the Days of Shakespeare,” and Hilda Moore, who could do all sorts of queer folk dances, was to busy her light feet in a series of quick change costume dances, while Amy Devery was to give an imitation of a funny motion-picture comedian who had made the whole country laugh at his antics.
“How would you like some imitations and baby songs?” asked Grace, forgetting for the moment the shadow that hung over her. “I have two friends who would be delighted to help you.”
“How lovely!” cried Louise Sampson. “Now if only we had some one who could sing serious songs exceptionally well.”
“Miss Brent has a wonderful voice,” said Evelyn rather reluctantly.
“Then we must ask her to sing,” decided Louise. “You ask her to-night, Evelyn.”
But Evelyn shook her head. “I’d rather you would ask her, Louise. Won’t you, please?”
“All right, I will,” said Louise good-naturedly, who had no idea of the strained relations existing between the two girls, and consequently thought nothing of Evelyn’s request.
“Much as I regret tearing myself away from this representative company of beauty and brains, I have themes that cry out to be corrected,” declared Emma Dean, who had been listening in interested silence to the plans for the coming revue.
“You can’t hear them cry out clear down here, can you?” asked Mary Reynolds flippantly.