ight fay and sportive faun
Wove their gay dances on the woodland lawn.
Alas! the stress of higher education
Has vanished these, the poet's fond creation.
But nature--not to be denied--has sent
Yet fairer forms for gladsome merriment,
Who wait my nod. The beauty of the nation
Are gathered here to win your approbation.
But you grow weary--Hither, maidens all,
Forth from your bowers, responsive to my call,
With roses crowned, let each and all advance,
And let the Revels start with song and dance!"

It was astonishing how well it sounded, recited with an air, and to an
accompaniment of smiles and waving hands. Little Hilary Jervis, the
youngest girl in the school, remarked rhapsodically that it was "Just
like a pantomime!" and the finale to the address was so essentially
dramatic that her elders were ready to agree with her decision.

Rhoda backed gracefully to the spot where her flower-decked chair had
been placed by her attendants, and having taken her seat, clapped her
hands as a signal to her handmaidens. Instantly from behind the shelter
of the trees there tripped forward a band of pink and green-robed
figures, bearing in their hands garlands of many-coloured roses. The
roses were but paper, it is true, and of the flimsiest manufacture, but
at a little distance the effect could not have been improved, and when
the dance began to the accompaniment of music "on the waters" the effect
was charming enough to disarm the most exacting of critics. It was an
adaptation of the "scarf dance" practised by the pupils, but the
dresses, the circumstances, the surroundings added charm to the
accustomed movements, and there were, of course, deviations from the
original figures, noticeably at the end, when, with a simultaneous
whirling movement, the dancers grouped themselves round their Queen,
holding up their skirts so as to entirely conceal their figures. The
greens were on the outside, the pinks arranged in gradually deepening
lines, and Rhoda's smiling face came peeping out on top; it was evident
to the meanest intellect that the final tableau was intended to
represent a rose, and--granted a little stretch of imagination--it was
really as much like it as anything else!

This first item of the programme over, the dancers grouped themselves in
attitudes of studied grace, while little green-robed heralds led the way
to what, for want of a more high-flown name, was termed "The Rose
Bower," where vario