she is. I
should think she might make a _Petruchio_ for you."

"I thought she would. But the boots seem to have a devastating effect.
The minute she gets them on--even in imagination, for we haven't had a
dress rehearsal yet--her voice grows softer and her manner more
lady-like. It's the funniest thing I ever knew, to hear her say the
lines--

"'What is this? mutton?...
'Tis burnt, and so is all the meat.
What dogs are these? Where is the rascal cook?

"How durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser,
And serve it thus to me that love it not?
There, take it to you, trenchers, cups and all,
You heedless joltheads and unmannered slaves!'"

Passersby along the street beheld a young man consumed with mirth as
Louis Gray heard these stirring words issuing from his sister's pretty
mouth in a clever imitation of the schoolgirl _Petruchio's_ "lady-like"
tones.

"Now speak those lines as you would if you wore the boots," he urged,
when he had recovered his gravity.

Roberta waited till they were at a discreet distance from other
pedestrians, then delivered the lines as she had already spoken them for
her pupil twenty times or more, with a spirit and temper which gave them
their character as the assumed bluster they were meant to picture.

"Good!" cried Louis. "Great! But you see, Sis, you have learned the
absolute control of your voice, and that's a thing few schoolgirls have
mastered. Besides, not every girl has a throat like yours."

"I mean to be patient," said Roberta soberly. "And Olivia has really a
good speaking voice. It's the curious effect of the imaginary boots that
stirs my wonder. She actually speaks in a higher key with them on than
off. But we shall improve that, in the fortnight before the play. They
are really doing very well, and our _Katherine_--Ethel Revell--is going
to forget herself completely in her part, if I can manage it. In spite
of the hard work I thoroughly enjoy the rehearsing of the yearly
play--it's a relief from the routine work of the class. And the girls
appreciate the best there is, in the great writers and dramatists, as
you wouldn't imagine they could do."

"On the whole, you would rather be a teacher than an office
stenographer?" suggested Louis, with a touch of mischief in his tone.
"You know, I've always been a bit disappointed that you didn't come into
our office, after working so hard to make an expert of yourself."

"That training wasn't wasted," defended Roberta. "