Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/128

 the knowledge that she was wearing the "mos' be-a-u-teeful tunica in Las Rubertas," outspelled and ontread them all.

But Rosario's supreme moment came when the scowling schoolmaster called upon her for her "piece" which was to be spoken from the platform, and from which divers small claimants for histrionic honors already had stumbled, weeping and disgraced, to their seats.

Rosario took care to finger her gold beads as she walked to the platform—gold beads are wonderfully stimulating upon occasions of the kind—and as she made her small curtsy she did not forget to smooth down the soft gathers of her skirt lest there be dull ones—oh, some very dull ones present who had not observed that it was changeable and sometimes shone a little pink as well as yellow in the deepest folds.

Nor did she neglect as she recited to draw her long braid of hair with the broad satin bow on the end over her shoulder, for the same most excellent reason.

It was a hymn she had learned—the longest in the hymn-book—nine verses and