It was an old-established custom at the Dower House that at the end of every term the girls must make a special effort to distinguish themselves. They would get up a play, or a concert, or a Shakespeare reading, sometimes a show of paintings, carving, and needlework, or a well-rehea.r.s.ed exhibition of physical exercises and drill. It was quite an informal affair, only intended for themselves and the mistresses, though occasionally Miss Birks invited a few friends to help to swell the audience. Now April was here, the Easter holidays seemed fast approaching, and preparations were accordingly made for the usual function. As a rule, the girls organized the affair themselves, under the direction of the Sixth Form, but this term Miss Harding stepped in and a.s.sumed the management. She decreed that all the members of the Latin cla.s.ses should give a Latin play, and selected a version of _Coriola.n.u.s_ for their performance. About half the school took Latin, just enough to make up the cast required, so both senior and junior students were set to work to learn speeches and get up orations. At first they were entirely dismayed at the prospect of so arduous an undertaking.

"I hardly thought Miss Harding was serious when she proposed it," said Annie Pridwell, who with Deirdre, Dulcie, and Gerda made up the four representatives of VB.

"Serious enough in all conscience," groaned Dulcie, turning over the leaves of the small volume with an air of special tragedy.

"Volumnia--Volumnia--yes, here she comes again--Volumnia--oh! why am I chosen for Volumnia? I'll never get all this stuff into my head!"

"You'll look the character nicely," said Annie consolingly. "You've really rather a cla.s.sic sort of nose, and you'll have a big distaff and spindle, and be spinning as you talk."

"That won't help me to remember my part, unless I can write it on a sc.r.a.p of paper and hide it among the flax. I declare, it's not fair!

Volumnia has far more to say than Tullus Attius or Sicinius. You ought to have something extra tagged on to your parts."

"We've quite enough, thanks!" declared Deirdre and Annie hastily.

"As for Gerda," continued Dulcie, "she's being let off too easily altogether. Her Senator's speech is only eight lines."

"Well, it's my first term at Latin, remember," said Gerda.

"Jessie Macpherson will have to swot like anything to get up 'Caius Marcus Coriola.n.u.s'. I'm glad I'm not picked for the show part, anyhow."

"Jessie won't mind swotting if she has a chance to shine. There'd have been trouble if she'd had to play second fiddle."

"No one would be rash enough to suggest that. She's not head of the school for nothing."

"Look here! Is this play to be part of the Latin lesson or an extra?

Shall we be excused our ordinary prep.?"

"Not a line."

"Oh, what a shame! Then it's giving us double lessons. I wish Miss Harding had left us to get up a concert by ourselves."

Although the girls might grumble and make rather a fuss over learning their parts, they soon committed the little play to memory, and thanks to Miss Harding's efforts rehearsals went briskly. Jessie Macpherson, whose cleverness certainly justified her a.s.sumption of general superiority, rose to the occasion n.o.bly, and tripped off her long speeches as if Latin were her mother tongue, to the envy and admiration of those who still halted and stumbled.

"Jessie had got through her grammar before she came to the Dower House, though," said Irene Jordan, herself a beginner. "It gives her an enormous pull to have started early."

"Boys' schools get up ever such grand Latin plays," remarked Rhoda Wilkins. "At Orton College, where my brothers go, they did the _Phormio_ of Terence. We went to see it, and it was splendid. It took fully two hours. Ours won't take one."

"Well, one expects boys to be better at Latin."

"Some girls' schools run them hard," said Phyllis Rowland. "I know girls who can beat their brothers."

"Oh, yes, at the big High Schools, where you choose cla.s.sics or modern languages, and stick to one side. At the Dower House we dabble in everything all round, maths., and science, and accomplishments thrown in as well. Well, it gives you the chance to see which you like best."

The most serious question in connection with the performance was the arrangement of the costumes. Miss Harding and the elder girls pored over ill.u.s.trated Roman histories and cla.s.sical dictionaries, trying to get the exact style of the period.

"It's difficult to reproduce with twentieth-century materials," said the mistress. "One feels all the linens ought to be homespun, and woven in a loom like Penelope's; and as for the scenery--well, we shall just have to do the best we can."

"As long as we avoid anachronisms we shall be all right," said Jessie Macpherson. "We shall have to leave something to the imagination of the audience."

The whole school was requisitioned to help, and large working parties were held in the dining-room. The girls found it an amus.e.m.e.nt to hem togas or construct shields out of cardboard and brown paper, and st.i.tched quite elaborate borders on the robes of Veturia, Volumnia, and Valeria. One of the difficulties that presented itself was the question of footgear. Roman matrons did not wear serviceable school shoes with heels, or elegant French ones either. It would certainly be necessary to contrive sandals.

"We can't cut our best shoes down for the occasion!" said Marcia Richards.

"I'd leave the school first!" returned Phyllis Rowland.

Hiring "Roman" sandals was too great an expense, and an ambitious attempt of Jessie Macpherson's to make them out of paper turned out a ghastly failure.

In the end Miss Harding cut some from strips of cloth, and this effect proved cla.s.sical enough to serve the purpose.

"That will be the best we can manage," she said.

"I'm thankful I haven't to do a dance in mine. It would be a queer sort of shuffle!" confided Dulcie to her chum.

In honour of the very special effort which was being made, Miss Birks decided to send a number of invitations and ask quite a considerable gathering to an afternoon performance.

"It's going to be really a swell thing for once," said Deirdre. "I hear Miss Birks is getting new curtains--those old ones are quite worn out--and the joiner is to come and fix a rod. And there's to be tea after the entertainment. Such heaps of people are coming!"

"Who?" asked Gerda.

"Oh, Major and Mrs. Hargreaves and their little boys, and Canon Hall and Miss Hall, and Dr. and Mrs. Dawes, and all the four Miss Hirsts, and the Rector of Kergoff, and Mr. Lawson, and of course Mrs. Trevellyan."

"And Ronnie?"

"Rather! We wouldn't leave Ronnie out of it! Miss Herbert is to come too, if she hasn't gone home for the holidays."

"You've never seen Mrs. Trevellyan yet, Gerda?" put in Dulcie.

"Only in church."

"Well, but I mean to speak to. You didn't go to Ronnie's birthday party, and the day she came here you were as shy as a baby, and scooted out of the way."

"I can't help being shy," returned Gerda, blushing up to the very tips of her ears.

"Why, there you are, turning as red as a boiled lobster! Miss Birks says shyness is mostly morbid self-consciousness, and isn't anything to be proud of. Why don't you try to get out of it? It looks right-down silly to colour up like that over simply nothing at all. I'd be ashamed of it!" said Dulcie, who could be severe on other people's faults, though she demanded charity for her own.

"Gerda's copying eighteenth-century heroines!" mocked Deirdre. "They always tried to outvie the rose. Didn't Herrick write a sonnet to his Julia's blushes? And I'm sure I remember reading somewhere:

'O, sweet and fair, Beyond compare, Are Daphne's cheeks.

And Daphne's blushing cheeks, I swear!'

Go it, Gerda! Can you possibly get a little redder if you try? If you outvie the rose, there's still the peony left!"

Gerda took her room-mates' teasing, as she took everything else at the Dower House, with little or no remonstrance. It would have pleased the girls much better if they could have raised a spark out of her. Her queer, self-contained reserve was not at all to their taste, and they awarded the palm of popularity to Betty Scott, whose high spirits, perpetual jokes, and amusing tongue made her the public entertainer of the Form.

"I wish Betty were acting," sighed Dulcie. "She's always the life and soul of a play. It was very stupid of her mother not to want her to learn Latin."

"I'm afraid Gerda'll be a perfect stick as Ancus Vinitius," whispered Deirdre.

"An absolute dummy," agreed her chum.