m the table and
another magazine, similar in appearance, put in its place.

If Miss Ashton had foreseen the deep interest the school were taking
in the proposed entertainment, she might have hesitated to propose it.
The truth was, it took the first place; studies became of secondary
importance. "What subjects had been chosen for the pieces? how they
were to be treated? how they progressed? how they would be received?"
These were the questions asked and answered, often under promise of
secrecy, sometimes with an open bravado amusing to see.

It was a relief to all the teachers when the Friday night came. The
girls in gala dress crowded early into the hall; Miss Ashton and the
teachers, also in full dress, followed them soon; and five minutes
before the time appointed for the opening of the evening entertainment
the hush of expectation made the room almost painfully still.

Miss Ashton had requested that the pieces should be sent in to her the
previous day. She had been surprised more at their number than their
excellence, indeed, there was but one that did not, on the whole,
disappoint her; that one delighted her.

She intended to read, not the best only, but the poorest, thinking,
perhaps, as good a lesson as could come to the careless or the
incapable would come from that sure touchstone of the value of any
writing,--its public reception.

The names were to be concealed; that had been understood from the
beginning, yet, with the exception of Kate Underwood, who was more
used to the public of their small world than any of the others, there
was not a girl there who had not a touch of stage fright, either on
her own account, or on that of her "dearest friend."

There were essays on friendship, love, generosity, jealousy,
integrity, laziness, hope, charity, punctuality, scholarship,
meanness. On youth, old age, marriage, courtship, engagement,
housekeeping, housework, the happiness of childhood, the sorrows of
childhood, truth, falsehood, religion, missionary work, the poor, the
duties of the rich, houses of charity, the tariff, the Republican
party, the Democratic party, woman's suffrage, which profession was
best adapted to a woman, servants, trades' unions, strikes,
sewing-women, shop-girls, newspaper boys, street gamins, the blind,
the deaf and dumb, idiots, Queen Victoria and the coming Republican
party into the government of England, the bloated aristocracy,
American girls as European brides, the cruelty of th