The quest is everlasting but the choice is thine.”
Sylvia and Beatrice Field then advance together and take their places in the center of the group, Sylvia as Health dressed in the green of the open fields and Beatrice in deep rose color.
“Trustworthiness and Sympathy dwell by my hearth
With Purity; we are the graces of the home.
And yet there is one other fairer still to come
Whose handmaids are these spirits named above;
To her alone I yield my gracious place,
The inspiration of the home—the world—is Love!”
While Esther has been finishing her verse, Juliet Field has come forth to portray the spirit of Trustworthiness in a dress of deep violet, carrying a sheath of purple lilies. Meg, with her charming face so full of humor and tenderness, is the embodiment of Sympathy, and Edith Norton as Purity has her long fair hair falling almost down to her knees and wears a dress of the palest green—like Undine when she first comes forth from the sea.
And now a crescent has slowly formed about the figure of Esther who is a little in advance of the other girls, but now as she speaks the final word—Love—she steps quietly backward and Mollie O’Neill as the spirit of Love occupies the center of the stage. She has never looked half so lovely in her life as she does to-night. Her gown is of pale pink, she has a wreath of roses in her black hair, her usually too grave expression is illumined by a smile born partly of fear and the rest of pride, which has nothing to do with her own appearance, but is a kind of shadowy pleasure in the beauty and the significance of the tableau surrounding her.