don’t know that, either. What would give you happiness?” Judith asked, with some curiosity.
The professor paused a moment, then he said calmly:
“A little home of my own in a shady quiet place with plenty of old trees, where I could work in peace. I have always fancied an old orchard. There might be a brook at one end – ”
Molly smiled.
“He’s thinking of my orchard,” she thought.
“There must be hundreds of birds in my orchard,” went on the professor, “and the grass must always be thick and green, except perhaps when the drought comes and it can’t help itself – ”
The six o’clock bell boomed out.
“Have an apple,” he said, taking two red apples from his pocket and giving one to each of the girls.
Then he opened the small oak door and stood politely aside while they passed out.
CHAPTER IV.
A LITERARY EVENING
The entertainment designed to bring Miss Minerva Higgins to a true understanding of her position as a freshman took place one Friday evening in the rooms of Margaret and Jessie. It was called on the invitation “A Literary Evening,” and was to be in the nature of a spread and fudge affair. There had been two rehearsals beforehand, and the girls were now prepared to enjoy themselves thoroughly.
Molly was loath to take part in the literary evening.
“I can’t bear to see anybody humiliated even when she ought to be,” she said, but she consented to come and to give a recitation.
Several study tables had been united for the supper, the cracks concealed by Japanese towelling contributed by Otoyo. There was no Mrs. Murphy in the Quadrangle from whom to borrow tablecloths. All the chairs from the other rooms were brought in to seat the company, who appeared grave and subdued. Most of the girls were dressed to resemble famous poets and authors. Judy was Byron; Margaret Wakefield, George Eliot; Nance, Charlotte Bronté; Edith Williams, Edgar Allan Poe; and Molly was Shelley. Shakespeare, Voltaire and Charles Dickens were in the company, and “The Duchess,” impersonated by Jessie Lynch.
The unfortunate Minerva was a little disconcerted at first when she found herself the only girl at the feast in her own character.
“Why didn’t you tell me, so that I could have come in costume, too?” she asked Margaret.
“But you had your medals,” was Margaret’s enigmatic answer.
Minerva looked puzzled. Then her gaze fell to the shining breastplate of silver and gold trophies. She had worn them all this evening. The temptation had been too great. The medals gleamed like so many solemn eyes. She wondered if the others could read what was inscribed on them, or if it would be necessary to call attention to the most choice ones: “THE HIGHEST GENERAL AVERAGE FOR FOUR YEARS”; “REGULAR ATTENDANCE”; “MATHEMATICS”; “THE BEST HISTORICAL ESSAY”; “ENGLISH AND COMPOSITION.”
Edith opened the evening by delivering a speech in Latin which was really one of Virgil’s eclogues mixed up with whatever she could recall of Livy and Horace, and filled out occasionally with Latin prose composition. It was so excruciatingly funny that Judy sputtered in her tea and was well kicked on her shins under the table.
Minerva, however, appeared to be profoundly impressed, and the company murmured subdued approvals when, at last, the speaker took breath and sat down, gazing solemnly around her with dark, melancholy eyes very much blacked around the lids.
Margaret then delivered a learned discourse on “Poise of Body and Poise of Mind,” which was skillfully expressed in such deep and intricate language that nobody could understand what she was talking about.
“Very, very interesting, indeed,” observed Edith.
“Remarkable; wonderful; so clearly put,” came from the others.
Minerva rubbed her eyes and frowned.
Nance recited “The Raven,” translated into very bad French. This was almost more than their gravity could endure, and when she ended each verse with “Dit le corbeau: jamais plus,” many of the girls stooped under the table for lost handkerchiefs and Japanese napkins.
But it was not until Judy had sung a lullaby in Sanskrit – so called – that Minerva became at all suspicious. Even then it was the wrong kind of suspicion. She thought that perhaps she should have laughed, and the others had politely refrained because she hadn’t.
After a great deal of learned talk, Molly stood on a soap box and recited “Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night.”
This was the crowning joy of that famous evening, but still Minerva appeared seriously impressed.
“I recited that once at Mill Town High School,” she remarked.
“Can’t you give us something to-night?” asked Molly kindly, feeling that in some way the unfortunate Minerva ought to be allowed to join in.
“I don’t know that I ought to give another poem by the same man,” she replied, “except that Miss Oldham gave ‘The Raven’ in French.”
“Don’t tell us you know ‘The Bells’?” demanded Edith Williams, in a trembling whisper.
“Oh, yes. I’ve given it at lots of school entertainments.”
“We had better turn down the lights,” said Margaret. “The room should be in darkness except the side light where Miss Higgins will stand. That will be the spot light.”
This was a fortunate arrangement because, while Minerva recited “The Bells,” with all proper gestures, intonations and echoes, according to Cleveland’s recitation book, the girls silently collapsed. When she had finished, they were reduced to that exhausted state that arrives after a supreme effort not to laugh.
At last the entertainment came to an end. Minerva departed with some of the others, while those who lived close by remained to chat for a few minutes.
“I give up,” exclaimed Margaret Wakefield. “Minerva is beyond teaching. She must remain forever the smartest girl in Mill Town High School.”
“The only pity of it is that it was all wasted on one humorless person. We really furnished her with a most delightful entertainment and she never even guessed it,” declared Nance.
“I’m glad she didn’t,” remarked Molly. “It was cruel, I think. Suppose she had caught on? Do you think it would have helped her? And we would have been uncomfortable.”
“Suppose she did understand and pretended not to. The joke would have been decidedly on us,” put in Katherine.
Later events of that evening would seem to bear out this suggestion, although just how deeply, if at all, Minerva was implicated in what followed no one could possibly tell. It was a question long afterwards in dispute whether one person had managed the sequel to the Literary Evening, or whether there had been a confederate. Certainly it seemed that every imp in Bedlam had been set free to do mischief, and if Minerva, as arch-imp, was looking for revenge, she found it.
“I don’t like to appear inhospitable, girls, but it’s five minutes of ten and I think you’d
