Lilly White, the dunce of the school, had hers written by the beginning of study hours. It covered three pages of foolscap paper, and had at least the merit of being written on only one side.
Among the few books Marion Parke had brought from her Western home, was an old magazine, printed by a Yale College club, and edited by her father when he was a member of the college.
This had in it one short story suggested by the West Rock at New Haven. In this rock was a rough cave, and here, tradition said, the regicides Goff and Whalley hid themselves from pursuit, after the murder of Charles I. The story was well told, not holding too rigorously to facts, but at the same time faithful enough to real incidents to make it not only interesting but valuable.
These were tender and touching scenes of a wife and a betrothed, who, through dangers of discovery and arrest, carried food and papers to the fugitives.
The story had always been a great favorite of Marion’s. One day when she felt homesick she had taken it out, read it, and left it on the top of her 93 table, under her Bible. Being very busy afterwards, and consequently the homesickness gone, she did not think of it again; she did not even notice that it had been abstracted from the table and another magazine, similar in appearance, put in its place.
If Miss Ashton had foreseen the deep interest the school were taking in the proposed entertainment, she might have hesitated to propose it. The truth was, it took the first place; studies became of secondary importance. “What subjects had been chosen for the pieces? how they were to be treated? how they progressed? how they would be received?” These were the questions asked and answered, often under promise of secrecy, sometimes with an open bravado amusing to see.
It was a relief to all the teachers when the Friday night came. The girls in gala dress crowded early into the hall; Miss Ashton and the teachers, also in full dress, followed them soon; and five minutes before the time appointed for the opening of the evening entertainment the hush of expectation made the room almost painfully still.
Miss Ashton had requested that the pieces should be sent in to her the previous day. She had been surprised more at their number than their excellence, indeed, there was but one that did not, on the whole, disappoint her; that one delighted her.
She intended to read, not the best only, but the poorest, thinking, perhaps, as good a lesson as could come to the careless or the incapable would come 94 from that sure touchstone of the value of any writing,—its public reception.
The names were to be concealed; that had been understood from the beginning, yet, with the exception of Kate Underwood, who was more used to the public of their small world than any of the others, there was not a girl there who had not a touch of stage fright, either on her own account, or on that of her “dearest friend.”