fallen exhausted
at the door of the lover of her girlhood. He, unafraid, had taken her
in and cared for her. On the morrow, the husband and father, having
discovered the empty tomb, came to claim her. She refused to return to
them and the case was carried to the court of law. The verdict given was
that a woman who had been "to burial borne" and left for dead, who had
been driven from her husband's door and from her childhood home, "must
be adjudged as dead in law and fact," was no more daughter or wife, but
was set free to form what new ties she would. The climax of the whole
selection came in the line,

"The court pronounces the defendant--DEAD!" and the Story Girl was wont
to render it with such dramatic intensity and power that the veriest
dullard among her listeners could not have missed its force and
significance.

She swept along through the poem royally, playing on the emotions of her
audience as she had so often played on ours in the old orchard. Pity,
terror, indignation, suspense, possessed her hearers in turn. In
the court scene she surpassed herself. She was, in very truth, the
Florentine judge, stern, stately, impassive. Her voice dropped into the
solemnity of the all-important line,

"'The court pronounces the defendant--'"

She paused for a breathless moment, the better to bring out the tragic
import of the last word.

"DEAD," piped up Sara Ray in her shrill, plaintive little voice.

The effect, to use a hackneyed but convenient phrase, can better be
imagined than described. Instead of the sigh of relieved tension that
should have swept over the audience at the conclusion of the line,
a burst of laughter greeted it. The Story Girl's performance was
completely spoiled. She dealt the luckless Sara a glance that would have
slain her on the spot could glances kill, stumbled lamely and impotently
through the few remaining lines of her recitation, and fled with crimson
cheeks to hide her mortification in the little corner that had been
curtained off for a dressing-room. Mr. Perkins looked things not lawful
to be uttered, and the audience tittered at intervals for the rest of
the performance.

Sara Ray alone remained serenely satisfied until the close of the
concert, when we surrounded her with a whirlwind of reproaches.

"Why," she stammered aghast, "what did I do? I--I thought she was stuck
and that I ought to prompt her quick."

"You little fool, she just paused for effect," cried Felicity angrily.