long time that evening going over the
different plays in her library, and finally, with a look of apology
toward a little photographed head of Shakespeare, she decided on
"Midsummer-Night's Dream." What if it was away above the heads of them
all, wouldn't a few get something from it? And wasn't it better to take
a great thing and try to make her scholars and a few of the community
understand it, rather than to take a silly little play that would not
amount to anything in the end? Of course, they couldn't do it well; that
went without saying. Of course it would be away beyond them all, but at
least it would be a study of something great for her pupils, and she
could meantime teach them a little about Shakespeare and perhaps help
some of them to learn to love his plays and study them.

The play she had selected was one in which she herself had acted the
part of Puck, and she knew it by heart. She felt reasonably sure that
she could help some of the more adaptable scholars to interpret their
parts, and, at least, it would be good for them just as a study in
literature. As for the audience, they would not be critics. Perhaps they
would not even be able to comprehend the meaning of the play, but they
would come and they would listen, and the experiment was one worth
trying.

Carefully she went over the parts, trying to find the one which she
thought would best fit Rosa Rogers, and please her as well, because it
gave her opportunity to display her beauty and charm. She really was a
pretty girl, and would do well. Margaret wondered whether she were
altogether right in attempting to win the girl through her vanity, and
yet what other weak place was there in which to storm the silly little
citadel of her soul?

And so the work of assigning parts and learning them began that very
week, though no one was allowed a part until his work for the day had
all been handed in.

At noon Margaret made one more attempt with Rosa Rogers. She drew her to
a seat beside her and put aside as much as possible her own remembrance
of the girl's disagreeable actions and impudent words.

"Rosa," she said, and her voice was very gentle, "I want to have a
little talk with you. You seem to feel that you and I are enemies, and I
don't want you to have that attitude. I hoped we'd be the best of
friends. You see, there isn't any other way for us to work well
together. And I want to explain why I spoke to you as I did yesterday.
It was not, as you hint