Even very able speeches by noted speakers are rather tiresome to read, so it will be better to simply give the most important part of this one without going fully into detail.
Mrs. Bellamy Gray, Ethel’s mother, had been a pupil of Mrs. Abbott, and it was one of the wishes expressed during her last sickness that her little daughter should be educated at the same school. Of course, it had not been her wish to send her there till she was of a suitable age, but now that circumstances had arisen which obliged Mr. Bellamy to go to Europe he felt anxious to leave her with the friend who had been so dear to her mother.
If there had been time, he told his audience, he should have liked to tell them of the various plans for helping and comforting others that his daughter had left for him to carry out. There was a bed in St. John’s Hospital, a small fund for giving six poor children a yearly outing, a memorial window in the little mission chapel where she had a Sunday-school class; and all these things were named for his dear and only daughter, and he loved to think that in these pleasant ways her works would seem to live after her. There were still some other schemes to carry out, and among them a Bellamy prize for Coventry Institute.
“I do not intimate,” said the speaker, having arrived at this very interesting part of his discourse, “that any one of Mrs. Abbott’s scholars has need of tangible help; neither do I propose to offer a prize because I think a spur to correct action is necessary; but because my daughter loved the school I wish to associate her memory with it in a pleasant way. The best way of doing this will have to be a matter of experiment and as a sort of trial trip. I will make it this year a prize of three hundred dollars in gold. Your teacher, warned by some sad experience in the past, is opposed to any thing which subjects her young people to a prolonged mental strain, so it will not do to make it a scholastic prize, and through some prejudices of my own, not liking to make it a reward for elegant deportment, I shall be obliged to say the prize is for the most deserving. It shall be given upon the anniversary of this day, and the recipient shall be selected by the vote of the school.”
Truly this was an extraordinary prize, and the girls discussed it with animation all the afternoon and during the evening, which on the last day of school was more like a social gathering, for the day-scholars were always invited in and the sadness of farewell was cheered by games, music, and dancing.
They would all have been delighted to have little Elfie with them in these last hours, but the fond grandfather could not spare her, and one of the girls, who had a message to deliver to Mrs. Abbott in the parlor, reported that the child lay fast asleep in Mr. Bellamy’s arms, while he was trying, at great inconvenience to himself, to write letters at a table, and black Candace sat patiently in the hall waiting for the long-delayed summons to put her little missy to bed.
It was late when the day scholars went home, and the others went up-stairs to their rooms very quietly. They all had to pass the large corner room which was always given to visitors, and, although the light was turned very low, they could see through the half-closed door that Candace was trying to undress the little girl without waking her, and the senator, whose broad back was toward the door, was bending down to unbutton the little shoes, one of which he lifted and pressed to his lips just as the last pair of girls went by.
“Did you see that?” whispered Katie, with the tears starting to her eyes.
“Yes, isn’t he lovely, and doesn’t he love the little one?” answered Lily, with a nod.
“And isn’t she a dainty darling, and wont we love her and pet her when we come back next term!”