"
"Stop, stop, Peter," quoth Mr. Perkins, sarcastically, "your name
might be Norval if you were never on the Grampian Hills. There's
a semi-colon in that line, I wish you to remember."
Peter did remember it. Cecily neither fainted nor failed when it
came her turn. She recited her little piece very well, though
somewhat mechanically. I think she really did much better than if
she had had her desired curls. The miserable conviction that her
hair, alone among that glossy-tressed bevy, was looking badly,
quite blotted out all nervousness and self-consciousness from her
mind. Her hair apart, she looked very pretty. The prevailing
excitement had made bright her eye and flushed her cheeks rosily--
too rosily, perhaps. I heard a Carlisle woman behind me whisper
that Cecily King looked consumptive, just like her Aunt Felicity;
and I hated her fiercely for it.
Sara Ray also managed to get through respectably, although she was
pitiably nervous. Her bow was naught but a short nod--"as if her
head worked on wires," whispered Felicity uncharitably--and the
wave of her lily-white hand more nearly resembled an agonized jerk
than a wave. We all felt relieved when she finished. She was, in
a sense, one of "our crowd," and we had been afraid she would
disgrace us by breaking down.
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