ispered eagerly, "how could you sleep when we was
makin' all that noise, Jimmie--clappin'?"

Jimmie took a long blissful gulp of lemonade, and then fished out the
strawberry from the bottom of the glass. "Ho," he said, "that wasn't
nothin'. It wasn't really me that was asleep, it was just my eyes,"
and Bobbie, though still hazy, accepted the explanation and fished for
his strawberry in imitation of his distinguished friend and actor,
Jimmie Jones!

Most of the children had read parts of "Elaine" at school, and they
"Oh-ed" and "Ah-ed" as the fair-haired heroine appeared.

Anne was very sweet, very appealing, as she went through the sad little
scenes, and when at last she sat at the window. Dr. Grennell did not
read Elaine's song, but Anne sang it, to Judy's accompaniment, played
softly behind the scenes.

"Sweet is true love, tho' given in vain, in vain;
And sweet is death who puts an end to pain:
I know not which is sweeter, no, not I."

And all the little girls wept into their handkerchiefs, while the boys
sniffed audibly.

"Bless their hearts," said Mrs. Batcheller to Miss Mary, "it's too bad
to have them cry."

But the Judge, who was a keen observer of human nature, shook his head.
"A little sadness now and then won't hurt them," he said. "It is the
shadows that make us appreciate the sunshine, you know."

There was a long wait before the curtain was raised on the last picture
in the poem: "The dead steer'd by the dumb."

The barge had been a problem, until Judy solved it by placing an
ironing-board across two chairs, and draping the whole into the
semblance of a boat-like bier.

Perkins, under protest, was pressed into service as the dumb boatman,
and with a long beard of white cotton, and a cloak and hood of funereal
black, he was a picturesque and pessimistic figure.

"It's so wobbly," said Anne, powdered with corn-starch to an
interesting paleness and draped all in white. "It's so wobbly, Judy,"
and she shrieked softly, as she laid herself flat on the ironing-board.

"Steady," advised Launcelot, as he shifted her carefully to the center,
"now for the lily and the letter, Judy," and he threw over the
prostrate Anne a yellow silk shawl of Judy's which was to serve as
cloth of gold.

"Now, Perkins," and Perkins climbed to the high stool, which had been
set in an armchair and formed the bow of the boat.

"If I falls, I falls," said Perkins, classically, "and my blood be on
your head, si