Page:Stanwood Pier--The ancient grudge.djvu/121

110 father, Mr. 'Alket. And he's a grand man, a grand man."

"It's a pleasure to find that his workmen feel so," Floyd said, "for I'm one, and it's the way I feel.—Miss Tibbs, let me take your glass."

Letty had been consulting with Miss Lally Gorham in a corner. Now she stepped forward and said—

"Lally is going to do a scene from Shakespeare. Constance before the French King—from King John."

Floyd began to clap his hands, and led the applause. But Miss Lally's face had already assumed a tragic aspect and did not relax.

"Letty, you will have to help me with my hair," she said, drawing out hairpins as she spoke. When all the sustaining articles had been removed, and the hair had tumbled abundantly down over her shoulders, she said, "I must ask you all to move a little farther back; I need more room.—King John has defeated the French King in battle and taken Constance's son, young Arthur, prisoner; Constance, grief-stricken, enters to the French King."

Miss Gorham paused a moment; then, with uplifted shaking arms, started forward, crying violently,—

She stopped her agitated pacing and addressed with absent deliberation the following lines to Mrs. Tustin,—

In the pause she made here, Mrs. Tustin inserted a brief, contemptuous, and defiant laugh; Miss Gorham, without altering the direction or intensity of her gaze, continued,—