leave out Alice's lessons (on the principle
that Alice was more likely to excel in ignorance), and to employ her
with Miss Merry, and the maid who was understood to wait on all the
ladies, in helping to arrange various dramatic costumes which Gwendolen
pleased herself with having in readiness for some future occasions of
acting in charades or theatrical pieces, occasions which she meant to
bring about by force of will or contrivance. She had never acted--only
made a figure in _tableaux vivans_ at school; but she felt assured that
she could act well, and having been once or twice to the Theatre
Francais, and also heard her mamma speak of Rachel, her waking dreams
and cogitations as to how she would manage her destiny sometimes turned
on the question whether she would become an actress like Rachel, since
she was more beautiful than that thin Jewess. Meanwhile the wet days
before Christmas were passed pleasantly in the preparation of costumes,
Greek, Oriental, and Composite, in which Gwendolen attitudinized and
speechified before a domestic audience, including even the housekeeper,
who was once pressed into it that she might swell the notes of
applause; but having shown herself unworthy by observing that Miss
Harleth looked far more like a queen in her own dress than in that
baggy thing with her arms all bare, she was not invited a second time.

"Do I look as well as Rachel, mamma?" said Gwendolen, one day when she
had been showing herself in her Greek dress to Anna, and going through
scraps of scenes with much tragic intention.

"You have better arms than Rachel," said Mrs. Davilow, "your arms would
do for anything, Gwen. But your voice is not so tragic as hers; it is
not so deep."

"I can make it deeper, if I like," said Gwendolen, provisionally; then
she added, with decision, "I think a higher voice is more tragic: it is
more feminine; and the more feminine a woman is, the more tragic it
seems when she does desperate actions."

"There may be something in that," said Mrs. Davilow, languidly. "But I
don't know what good there is in making one's blood creep. And if there
is anything horrible to be done, I should like it to be left to the
men."

"Oh, mamma, you are so dreadfully prosaic! As if all the great poetic
criminals were not women! I think the men are poor cautious creatures."

"Well, dear, and you--who are afraid to be alone in the night--I don't
think you would be very bold in crime, thank God."

"I am no