Lift thine eyes, my maiden, to the hill-top nigh;
Lo! the dawn is breaking, rosy beams the sky.
Lift thine eyes, my maiden, hear thy lover’s cry.
“Lonely is our valley, though the month is May,
Come and be my moonlight, I will be thy day.
Lift thine eyes, my maiden, oh, behold me nigh;
Now the sun is rising, now the shadows fly.
Lift thine eyes, my maiden, hear thy lover’s cry.”
Hearing the applause which broke out like a storm at the close of Esther’s singing, Betty managed to get away from Polly and to find Esther shivering in the kitchen which opened just off their stage and had been used for the entrance way that evening. But no power or persuasion could have induced Esther to go back upon the stage, not even when Herr Crippen added his entreaties, nor when Dick slipped out into the cold and came around through the back door to congratulate her. If Esther had pleased Betty and Dick and Miss McMurtry, really she cared very little for any one else’s criticism.
Nevertheless, later that evening, when the company was enjoying a kind of informal reception, she could not refuse to be introduced to the celebrated Miss Margaret Adams, who sent one of the girls especially for her. Esther was awkward and tongue-tied and nervous as usual when the great lady congratulated her, very different from Polly, who when she had recovered from her faintness had come immediately out into the living room and gone straight up to Miss Adams and taken her hand.