The Daughters of the Little Grey HouseTaggart, Marion Ames
General
The Daughters of the Little Grey House
Taggart, Marion Ames
Families -- Juvenile fiction
The rehearsal for the Twelfth Night entertainment went off so well that
the double quartette most interested in it were greatly elated.
Eleanor Dinsmore, Edith Hooper, Helen Lacey three pretty girls--as well
as Fayre girls--had been asked to complete the number for the gavotte,
and their brothers and cousins and friends, four in all, had gladly
added themselves to the Rutherfords and Lester Baldwin to make up eight
men. Rob had had an inspiration, and had written words to be sung
by the dancers to a beautiful old French gavotte air, as they moved
through the stately figures of the charming dance. Even in ordinary
modern dress the effect was so exquisite that the few privileged
people who looked on were enthusiastic. The young people began to
plume themselves on accomplishing something really artistic, while
the fear that the ticket purchasers would feel that their purchase
was equivalent to an outright donation, with no return to themselves,
vanished like mists in the sunshine of the dancers' perception of
unhoped-for success.
The songs were not going to fail either. The Greys and Battalion
B, with Frances, had sung together since their first meeting. Now
Bartlemy's uncertain bass had deepened into the real thing, Basil's
tenor had grown sweeter, and Bruce's barytone richer. Oswyth had a
sympathetic, true little home voice, exactly like herself; Rob sang
alto very well, and Prue's high soprano had grown stronger than when
they first sang together rowing and working through that summer of
the beginning of Greys' acquaintance with the Rutherfords. Frances
had always sung well, and now Hester's rich, splendid alto was a real
acquisition, while Lester Baldwin's tenor was stronger and higher than
Basil's. It really was an unusual combination of voices, and long
practise together, of most of the singers, made them know exactly how
to bring out one another's best points, and made the voices blend quite
beautifully.
It had not taken much persuasion to get Lester Baldwin to give up
his intention of going back after the rehearsal, but to accept the
Rutherfords' hospitality that night and take Hester back Sunday
evening.
Bruce glowered at Lester for an hour after he met him, then yielded
to his personal charm, but still more to the charm of his marked
preference for talking to Frances, and became cordial with a heartiness
that surprised Lester. He did not know that it was not for what he had
done, nor for what he was, but for what he had not done and for what he
was not that Bruce Rutherford suddenly became his friend.
Sunday morning the three Greys and Battalion B carried off Hester and
her cousin to the quiet church where the Grey girls had been carried in
white draperies to be made little Christians in baptism--Very little
and very reluctant ones.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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