ad for this scene, so
you'll know how long you have to pose to-night. It begins with those
lines, 'And the dead, oared by the dumb, went upward with the flood. In
her right hand the lily, in her left the letter.' Where did I put that
volume of Tennyson?"

"Here it is," answered Mary Ware, unexpectedly, springing up from her
seat on the grass to hand her the volume. She had been watching the
rehearsal with wide-eyed interest. Deep down in her romance-loving
little soul had long been the desire to see Sir Feal the Faithful face
to face, and hear him address the Princess. The play of the "Rescue of
the Princess Winsome" had become a real thing to her, that she felt that
it must have happened; that Malcolm really was Lloyd's true knight, and
that when they were alone together they talked like the people in books.
She was disappointed when the rehearsal was over because the
conversation she had imagined did not take place.

The coachman's carpenter-work was not of the steadiest, and Lloyd lay
laughing on the shaky bier because she could not rise without fear of
upsetting it.

"Help me up, you ancient mariner," she ordered, and when Malcolm,
instead of springing forward in courtly fashion to her assistance as Sir
Feal should have done, playfully held out his pole for her to pull
herself up by, Mary felt that something was wrong. A playful manner was
not seemly on the part of a Sir Feal. It would have been natural enough
for Phil or Rob to do teasing things, but she resented it when there
seemed a lack of deference on Malcolm's part toward the Princess.

After they had gone back to the porch, Mary sat on the grass a long
time, reading the part of the poem relating to the tableau. She and
Holland had committed to memory several pages of the "Idylls of the
King," and had often run races repeating them, to see which could finish
first. Now Mary found that she still remembered the entire page that
Miss Allison had read. She closed the book, and repeated it to herself.

"So that day there was dole in Astolat.

. . . . . . . . .

Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead,
Oared by the dumb, went upward with the flood--
In her right hand the lily, in her left
The letter--all her bright hair streaming down--
And all the coverlid was cloth of gold--
Drawn to her waist, and she herself in white.
All b