On the couch lay Judy all in soft, shining, satiny white, her dark hair spreading over the pillow, and one hand under her cheek; and at each end, Nannie and Amelia, in rose color and in violet, blissfully happy, and, though their eyes were closed, wide awake to the charms of the situation. "Now--ready," whispered Anne, as Dr. Grennell's fine voice rolled out the last lines of the "Prologue." "Now--" and the curtain went up on "The Sleeping Princess." Jimmie's mouth flew open and Amelia smiled, but little cared the gaping audience for such trifles. Breathless they stared as one scene followed another. Launcelot was a Prince that set all the little girls' hearts a-flutter, as he knelt beside the couch, with a great bunch of dewy roses in his arms, which, in the next picture, lay all scattered over Judy, when she waked and gazed at him dreamily. Jimmie came out strongly at this point, with a prodigious yawn that almost broke him in two, and was so expressive of great weariness that little Bobbie Green, his bosom friend, was carried away by the realism of it, and asked in awe, "Did he really sleep a hundred years?" and was not quite brought back to earth by Tommy Tolliver's exclamation, "Why you saw him awake this morning, Bobbie, didn't you?" The Prince and the Princess went away together at last; she with a long velvet cloak covering the whiteness of her gown, and a hat with white plumes, and he with a sword at his side, that made Tommy Tolliver turn green with envy. Jimmie Jones came down and sat by Bobbie Green during the intermission, in which lemonade was passed and the pictures discussed. Bobbie gazed upon him as one who has come from a strange country. "Say, say," he whispered eagerly, "how could you sleep when we was makin' all that noise, Jimmie--clappin'?" Jimmie took a long blissful gulp of lemonade, and then fished out the strawberry from the bottom of the glass. "Ho," he said, "that wasn't nothin'. It wasn't really me that was asleep, it was just my eyes," and Bobbie, though still hazy, accepted the explanation and fished for his strawberry in imitation of his distinguished friend and actor, Jimmie Jones! Most of the children had read parts of "Elaine" at school, and they "Oh-ed" and "Ah-ed" as the fair-haired heroine appeared. Anne was very sweet, very appealing, as she went through the sad little scenes, and when at last she sat at the window. Dr. Grennell did not read Elaine's song, but Anne sang it, to Judy's accompaniment, played softly behind the scenes. "Sweet is true love, tho' given in vain, in vain; And sweet is death who puts an end to pain: I know not which is sweeter, no, not I." And all the little girls wept into their handkerchiefs, while the boys sniffed audibly. "Bless their hearts," said Mrs. Batcheller to Miss Mary, "it's too bad to have them cry."