"Why can't Reverend Mother, if she likes it so much, learn it for herself?" asked Tony sharply. "I'll lend her my atlas." "Oh, she knows it all," said Lilly, rather scandalized. "Madame Duncan told me it was her favourite study, and that she knew the geography of the whole world." "Then I don't see why she wants to hear us say it," observed Elizabeth, apparently under the impression that competitions, like gladiatorial shows, were gotten up solely for the amusement of an audience. It never occurred to her, nor indeed to any of us, to attach any educational value to the performance. We conceived that we were butchered to make a convent holiday. "And it's because Reverend Mother is so fond of music that we are going to have an operetta instead of a play," went on Lilly, pleased to have information to impart. I sighed heavily. How could anybody prefer anything to a play? I recognized an operetta as a form of diversion, and was grateful for it, as I should have been grateful for any entertainment, short of an organ recital. We were none of us surfeited with pleasures. But to me song was at best only an imperfect mode of speech; and the meaningless repetition of a phrase, which needed to be said but once, vexed my impatient spirit. We were already tolerably familiar with "The Miracle of the Roses." For two weeks past the strains had floated from every music room. We could hear, through the closed doors, Frances Fenton, who was to be St. Elizabeth of Hungary, quavering sweetly,-- "Unpretending and lowly, Like spirits pure and holy, I love the wild rose best, I love the wild rose best, I love the wi-i-ild rose best." We could hear Ella Holrook announcing in her deep contralto,-- "'Tis the privilege of a Landgrave To go where glory waits him, Glory waits him;" and the chorus trilling jubilantly,-- "Heaven has changed the bread to roses, Heaven has changed the bread to roses." Why, I wondered, did they have to say everything two and three times over? Even when the Landgrave detects St. Elizabeth in the act of carrying the loaves to the poor, his anger finds a vent in iteration. "Once again you've dared to brave my anger, Yes, once again you've dared to brave my anger; My power you scorn, My power you scorn." To which the Saint replies gently, but tediously,-- "My lord they are, My lord they are But simple roses, But simple ro-o-oses, That I gathered in the garden even now." "Suppose that bread hadn't been changed to roses," said Elizabeth speculatively, "I wonder what St. Elizabeth would have done." "Oh, she knew it had been, because she prayed it would be," said Marie, who was something of a theologian. "But suppose it hadn't." "But it _had_, and she knew it had, because of her piety and faith," insisted Marie. "I shouldn't have liked to risk it," murmured Elizabeth.