“It’s Kate Underwood herself,” was whispered from seat to seat. “There’s no other girl in school that can read as well as she can.”
The poem gave a brief description of the kitchen as it appeared on the stage, then a more lengthy one of the old woman, with the contents of the letter she 77 was reading. It was from a niece at a boarding-school, who proposed, in a brief and direct way, to visit this aunt during her coming vacation. The tableau was acted so well, and with such piquancy, that claps and peals of laughter from the audience, and finally calls for “Kate Underwood,” who demurely makes her appearance from behind the curtain, drops a stage courtesy, and disappears. The poem had been (this audience constituting the judges) excellent, the very best thing Kate ever wrote; and as for the tableaux, were there ever any before one-half so good?
Now, while to almost all in the hall there had been nothing said or done that could injure the feelings of any one, to Marion Parke it seemed an unkind take-off of her cousin during his recent visit to her.
Something in the tall, gaunt girl, in her rough, coarse dress, in the grotesque awkwardness of her movements, reminded Marion of Cousin Abijah; and while she had laughed with the others, and had refused to allow her feelings to be hurt, she left the hall uncomfortable and unhappy, wishing he had never come, or that all the school had shown the kind consideration of Miss Ashton; nor was she helped in the least when she heard Susan telling in great glee how the whole plan had come to them after the visit of that uncouth old cousin of Marion Parke.
CHAPTER XIII.
GLADYS LEAVES THE CLUB.
Dorothy was the first to see Marion at the door of their room after the tableaux. She hoped she had not heard what Sue had said, but that she had she could not doubt when she saw the pained expression on Marion’s face. In the after discussion of the entertainment, Marion took no part, but went quietly to her bed, with only a brief “good-night.”
“They have hurt her feelings, and they ought to have been ashamed of themselves,” said kind Dorothy to the two members of the club sitting beside her. “Girls, if that is what you mean to do in your Demosthenic Club, I am most thankful I never joined it, and the sooner you both leave it the better.”