Chapter Thirty Two.
“The Princess.”
The great event of the term was to take place that evening. The Princess was to be acted by the girls of St. Benet’s, and, by the kind permission of Miss Vincent, the Principal of the entire college, several visitors were invited to witness the entertainment. The members of the Dramatic Society had taken immense pains; the rehearsals had been many, the dresses all carefully chosen, the scenery appropriate—in short, no pains had been spared to render this lovely poem of Tennyson’s a dramatic success. The absence of Rosalind Merton had, for a short time, caused a little dismay among the actors. She had been cast for the part of Melissa—
“A rosy blonde, and in a college gown
That clad her like an April daffodilly.”
But now it must be taken by someone else.
Little Ada Hardy, who was about Rosalind’s height, and had the real innocence which, alas! poor Rosalind lacked, was sent for in a hurry, and, carefully drilled by Constance Field and Maggie Oliphant, by the time the night arrived she was sufficiently prepared to act the character, slight in itself, which was assigned to her. The other actors were, of course, fully prepared to take their several parts, and a number of girls were invested in the
“Academic silks, in hue The lilac, with a silken hood to each, And zoned with gold.”
Nothing could have been more picturesque, and there was a buzz of hearty applause from the many spectators who crowded the galleries and front seats of the little theatre when the curtain rose on the well-known garden scene, where the Prince, Florian, and Cyril saw the maidens of that first college for women—that poet’s vision, so amply fulfilled in the happy life at St. Benet’s.
“There
One walk’d, reciting by herself, and one
In this hand held a volume as to read,
And smoothed a petted peacock down with that:
Some to a low song oar’d a shallop by,
Or under arches of the marble bridge
Hung, shadow’d from the heat: some hid and sought
In the orange thickets: others tost a ball
Above the fountain jets, and back again
With laughter: others lay about the lawns,
Of the older sort, and murmur’d that their May
Was passing: what was learning unto them?
They wish’d to marry: they could rule a house;
Men hated learned women...”
The girls walked slowly about amongst the orange groves and by the fountain jets. In the distance the chapel bells tolled faint and sweet. More maidens appeared, and Tennyson’s lovely lines were again represented with such skill, the effect of multitude was so skilfully managed, that the