"And I'm absolutely green with stage-fright! What a life!" proclaimed
Fil.

If Miss Godwin, the drawing-mistress, noticed a slacking off in accuracy
on the part of four of her pupils, that afternoon, she perhaps set it
down to want of artistic feeling. It is difficult to copy with absolute
exactness when only your fingers are busy, and your brain is far away.
Ingred planned enough entertainments to supply a Pierrot troupe for a
month, but abandoned most of them as being quite impossible to act with
the very limited resources that were available at the hostel. At a
select Foursome Committee after school, however, she presented the pick
of the performances, and as nobody else had thought of anything better,
or indeed quite so good, her suggestions, with a few amendments and
alterations, were carried unanimously.

At eight o'clock that evening, when preparation was finished, the
boarders' room was rapidly transformed into an amateur theater. The
trestle tables were carried to one end to form the gallery, rows of
chairs represented the dress circle, and cushions in front either the
pit or the stalls, according to individual taste, or, as Mrs. Best said,
the behavior of the occupants.

There was no curtain, but, as the scenery preserved Shakespearian
methods of simplicity, that did not matter. Part of the charm of these
Thursday night entertainments was their absolutely spontaneous
character, and the fact that many details had to be left to the
imagination of the spectators only made things more amusing.

When the audience, after a slight struggle for gallery seats, had
settled itself, and Mrs. Best and Nurse Warner had taken possession of
the arm-chairs specially reserved for them, Dollie Ransome, who had been
requisitioned by the performers to act as Greek chorus, placed some
stools by the fire-place, and announced importantly:

"King Alfred and the Cakes. A Historical Drama."

The little old woman who entered, carrying some sticks and a basin, was
difficult to identify as Fil. Her fair hair had been powdered, wrinkles
were painted on her smooth forehead, a handkerchief was knotted on her
head for a cap, and she wore an apron borrowed from the cook, and a
check table-cover arranged as a shawl. She bestowed the sticks in the
fender to represent a fire on the hearth, and taking some biscuits from
her basin, placed them amongst the supposed embers, indulging meanwhile
in a soliloquy about the hardness of the times for