Cecily finally yielded and went upstairs with the Story Girl.
Presently we heard a little shriek--then two little shrieks--then

three. Then Felicity came flying down and called her mother.
Aunt Janet went up and presently came down again with a grim

mouth. She filled a large pan with warm water and carried it
upstairs. We dared ask her no questions, but when Felicity came

down to wash the dishes we bombarded her.
"What on earth is the matter with Cecily?" demanded Dan. "Is she sick?"

"No, she isn't. I warned her not to put her hair in curls but she
wouldn't listen to me. I guess she wishes she had now. When

people haven't natural curly hair they shouldn't try to make it
curly. They get punished if they do."

"Look here, Felicity, never mind all that. Just tell us what has
happened Sis."

"Well, this is what has happened her. That ninny of a Sara Ray
brought up a bottle of mucilage instead of Judy's curling-fluid,

and Cecily put her hair up with THAT. It's in an awful state."
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Dan. "Look here, will she ever get it out?"

"Goodness knows. She's got her head in soak now. Her hair is
just matted together hard as a board. That's what comes of

vanity," said Felicity, than whom no vainer girl existed.
Poor Cecily paid dearly enough for HER vanity. She spent a bad

forenoon, made no easier by her mother's severe rebukes. For an
hour she "soaked" her head; that is, she stood over a panful of

warm water and kept dipping her head in with tightly shut eyes.
Finally her hair softened sufficiently to be disentangled from the

curl papers; and then Aunt Janet subjected it to a merciless
shampoo. Eventually they got all the mucilage washed out of it

and Cecily spent the remainder of the forenoon sitting before the
open oven door in the hot kitchen drying her ill-used tresses.

She felt very down-hearted; her hair was of that order which,
glossy and smooth normally, is dry and harsh and lustreless for

several days after being shampooed.
"I'll look like a fright tonight," said the poor child to me with

trembling voice. "The ends will be sticking out all over my
head."

"Sara Ray is a perfect idiot," I said wrathfully
"Qh, don't be hard on poor Sara. She didn't mean to bring me

mucilage. It's really all my own fault, I know. I made a solemn
vow when Peter was dying that I would never curl my hair again,

and I should have kept it. It isn't right to break solemn vows.
But my hair will look like dried hay tonight."

Poor Sara Ray was quite overwhelmed when she came up and found
what she had done. Felicity was very hard on her, and Aunt Janet

was coldly disapproving, but sweet Cecily forgave her
unreservedly, and they walked to the school that night with their

arms about each other's waists as usual.
The school-room was crowded with friends and neighbours. Mr.

Perkins was flying about, getting things into readiness, and Miss
Reade, who was the organist of the evening, was sitting on the

platform, looking her sweetest and prettiest. She wore a
delightful white lace hat with a fetching little wreath of tiny

forget-me-nots around the brim, a white muslin dress with sprays
of blue violets scattered over it, and a black lace scarf.

"Doesn't she look angelic?" said Cecily rapturously.
"Mind you," said Sara Ray, "the Awkward Man is here--in the corner

behind the door. I never remember seeing him at a concert
before."

"I suppose he came to hear the Story Girl recite," said Felicity.
"He is such a friend of hers."

The concert went off very well. Dialogues, choruses and
recitations followed each other in rapid succession. Felix got

through his without "getting stuck," and Peter did excellently,
though he stuffed his hands in his trousers pockets--a habit of

which Mr. Perkins had vainly tried to break him. Peter's
recitation was one greatly in vogue at that time, beginning,

"My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills
My father feeds his flocks."

At our first practice Peter had started gaily in, rushing through
the first line with no thought whatever of punctuation--" My name

is Norval on the Grampian Hills."
"Stop, stop, Peter," quoth Mr. Perkins, sarcastically, "your name

might be Norval if you were never on the Grampian Hills. There's
a semi-colon in that line, I wish you to remember."

Peter did remember it. Cecily neither fainted nor failed when it
came her turn. She recited her little piece very well, though

somewhat mechanically. I think she really did much better than if
she had had her desired curls. The miserableconviction that her

hair, alone among that glossy-tressed bevy, was looking badly,
quite blotted out all nervousness and self-consciousness from her

mind. Her hair apart, she looked very pretty. The prevailing
excitement had made bright her eye and flushed her cheeks rosily--

too rosily, perhaps. I heard a Carlisle woman behind me whisper
that Cecily King looked consumptive, just like her Aunt Felicity;

and I hated her fiercely for it.
Sara Ray also managed to get through respectably, although she was

pitiably nervous. Her bow was naught but a short nod--"as if her
head worked on wires," whispered Felicity uncharitably--and the

wave of her lily-white hand more nearly resembled an agonized jerk
than a wave. We all felt relieved when she finished. She was, in

a sense, one of "our crowd," and we had been afraid she would
disgrace us by breaking down.

Felicity followed her and recited her selection without haste,
without rest, and absolutely without any expression whatever. But

what mattered it how she recited? To look at her was sufficient.
What with her splendid fleece of golden curls, her great,

brilliant blue eyes, her exquisitely tinted face, her dimpled
hands and arms, every member of the audience must have felt it was

worth the ten cents he had paid merely to see her.
The Story Girl followed. An expectant silence fell over the room,

and Mr. Perkins' face lost the look of tense anxiety it had worn
all the evening. Here was a performer who could be depended on.

No need to fear stage fright or forgetfulness on her part. The
Story Girl was not looking her best that night. White never

became her, and her face was pale, though her eyes were splendid.
But nobody thought about her appearance when the power and magic

of her voice caught and held her listeners spellbound.
Her recitation was an old one, figuring in one of the School

Readers, and we scholars all knew it off by heart. Sara Ray alone
had not heard the Story Girl recite it. The latter had not been

drilled at practices as had the other pupils, Mr. Perkins choosing
not to waste time teaching her what she already knew far better

than he did. The only time she had recited it had been at the
"dress rehearsal" two nights before, at which Sara Ray had not

been present.
In the poem a Florentine lady of old time, wedded to a cold and

cruel husband, had died, or was supposed to have died, and had
been carried to "the rich, the beautiful, the dreadful tomb" of

her proud family. In the night she wakened from her trance and
made her escape. Chilled and terrified, she had made her way to

her husband's door, only to be driven away brutally as a restless
ghost by the horror-stricken inmates. A similar reception awaited

her at her father's. Then she had wandered blindly through the
streets of Florence until she had 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