It was perhaps Carmel's rendering of the Pastorale dance that suggested to Miss Walters a scheme of entertainment for the garden fete which the girls were to give in aid of the "Homes for Waifs and Strays." She decided that the garden of Chilcombe Hall would make an excellent background for some classic representations, and that nothing could be prettier than old Greek costumes. By a stroke of great good luck she managed to engage Miss Adams, a former pupil who had been studying classic dancing in Paris, to come for a few weeks and train the performers. Miss Adams was a tremendous enthusiast, and arrived full of ideas which she was burning to teach to the school. The girls were delighted with her methods. It was quite a new phase of dancing to trip barefooted on the lawn, holding up garlands of flowers. They liked the exercises which she gave them for the cultivation of grace, and practised classic attitudes on all occasions, with more or less success. "You go about the school so exactly like Minerva!" complained Noreen to Phillida, rather dismayed by the sudden change in her lively friend from bounding spirits to a statuesque pose. "Need you always walk as if you were thinking of the shape of your ankles?" Phillida shook her head carefully, so as not to disarrange the Greek fillet she was wearing. "It's been too hot lately to tear round and play tennis. I think, too, that what Miss Adams says is quite right. English girls _are_ lacking in grace and dignity. Just look at the way Ida and Joyce are flopping about now. An artist would have fits to see them!" "Well, of course they're not sitting for their portraits. Oh yes! I love dancing, but I don't want to worry about being graceful all day long!" "That's just the point, though," persisted Phillida, who was a zealous convert. "The dances are to make you graceful _always_. You so get into the poetry of motion that it's quite impossible for you ever to flop again!" "Is it? Oh, Kafoozalum!" burbled Noreen, exploding into a series of chuckles. "'She never flopped again!' We ought to make a parody on that from the poem of 'The White Ship.' "Miss Adams to the school came down, The classic wave rolled on: And what was cricket's latest score To those who danced alone? "From dawn they practised attitudes Until the sun did wane; And fast confirmed in Grecian pose, They never flopped again!" "You may mock as much as you please!" retorted Phillida, "but it's sheer envy because you know you won't be chosen as a wood nymph. Play cricket and tennis if you wish, by all means! But _I_ think when we're having a performance we may just as well give our minds to it, and do it properly, especially when Miss Adams is here to teach us." "Right you are! Float on, O goddess! You're getting too ethereal for the school. I shall be glad when the entertainment's over, and we can have a cricket match again. It's decidedly more in my line!"