“Oh, yes, we will. She will not play another note, not if they take the rafters down, and as soon as the audience discovers that, they will quit,” appeased Weasie. “Oh, they’re giving her flowers!” whispered Clare, her eye to the peephole. “An usher just brought a big bunch!” Helen could be seen accepting the flowers. She bowed gracefully, then glanced at the dangling card. The next moment she had dropped the flowers to the floor, and she stood there, like one transfixed! Everyone saw what happened! When Helen read the card she dropped the flowers! There was a breathless pause. Finally a timid clap came like a signal from Jane’s chair. Helen glanced over, recovered herself and with a murmur of apology regained her flowers. But not before the mischief had been done. Everyone wanted to know what was written on that card, and the remainder of the Barn Swifts’ performance went by the wayside. The tragic little incident had stirred the audience to evident curiosity, and whispers broke out ruthlessly at the most thrilling moments. Applause was sounded where the audience should have wept, and when Gloria spoke the most dramatic line of the whole plot, when tears should have burst from eyes and sighs escaped from trembling lips, some one cheered! “Awful!” moaned Dickey, the coach. Unsteadily Helen came within the “flies” a little pale, but smiling and hugging her roses. She was instantly surrounded by a crowd, too overcome to really offer compliments, but the way they caressed her with their eyes told the story. Helen had made the Barn Swifts famous, and what matter about drivelling drama! When eventually the audience stirred, Mrs. Weatherbee succeeded in reaching Jane, and was now talking to her in a serious tone. “I had no idea of her genius,” the directress said. “She has a positive gift. She should not be wasting her precious time here in commonplace English.” “Yes, I know, Mrs. Weatherbee,” Jane faltered. “But she wants so much to acquire a knowledge of our language. And Helen is still very young.” “Oh, I realize that, my dear, but she is—an artist. She has given all a wonderful treat. Tell her to drop in the office to see me, when she is composed again. I fancy the whole matter made her a little nervous. She dropped her flowers, as if frightened for a moment.” “Yes, I noticed that,” said Jane foolishly. As if everyone had not “noticed that.” Out in the lane, a bypath that wound round to the campus houses, Marian Seaton and Dolorez Vincez were tramping along, arm in arm, minds working in a strain of peculiar satisfaction. “I knew that would get her,” said Dolorez. “Yes, wasn’t it perfectly tragic!” exclaimed Marian. “Great!” declared the other, less choice with her expression than was Marian. “I would not have missed that for a farm.” “The effect was certainly very startling. Yet she did recover herself. What a wonderful player she is! How ever did she learn all that in her scant years?”