"He must be a remarkable person, considering the way you gasped and clutched me," laughed Grace.
"That man is Everett Southard, the great Shakespearian actor," said Anne almost reverently. "I saw him in 'Hamlet' and his acting is wonderful."
"No wonder you were surprised," said Grace.
"It fairly takes my breath. I've seen ever so many pictures of him and read magazine articles about him. What do you suppose he is doing in Oakdale, and at the High School--of all places?"
"Time will tell," said Nora. Then she suddenly clasped her hands. "O girls, I know! He's here for the try-out!"
"Why of course he is," exclaimed Grace. "Now I remember Miss Tebbs showed me a magazine picture of him one day last year, and told me that she had known him since childhood. Besides, he is playing a three-night engagement in Albany. I read it in the paper last night. It's as plain as can be. Miss Tebbs has asked him to run up here and pick out the cast."
"Good gracious," said Jessica. "I shall retire in confusion if he looks at me. I won't dare aspire to a part now, and I had designs on the part of Phebe."
"Don't be a goose," said Nora. "He's only a man. He can't hurt you.
I think having him here will be a lark. Won't some of those girls put on airs, though. There he is talking with Miss Tebbs now."
The girls entered the gymnasium to find there nearly all of those who had attended the first meeting in the library increased by about a score of girls who had decided at the last minute to try for parts. Eleanor stood at one end of the great room, with Edna Wright and Daisy Culver.
Grace thought she had never seen Eleanor looking more beautiful. She was wearing a fur coat and hat far too costly for a school girl, and carried a huge muff. Her coat was thrown open, disclosing a perfectly tailored gown of brown, with trimmings of dull gold braid. She was talking animatedly and her two friends were apparently hanging on every word she uttered.
"No wonder Eleanor has an opinion of herself," said Nora. "Look at Daisy and Edna. They act as though Eleanor were the Sultan of Turkey or the Shah of Persia, or some other high and mighty dignitary. They almost grovel before her."
"Never mind, Nora," said Grace. "As long as you retain your Irish independence what do you care about what other girls do?"
"I don't care. Only they do act so silly," said Nora, with a sniff of contempt.
"Sh-h-h!" said Jessica softly. "Miss Tebbs is going to call the meeting to order."
A hush fell over the assembled girls as Miss Tebbs stepped forward to address them.
"I am very glad to see so many girls here," she said. "It shows that you are all interested in the coming play. Although you cannot all have parts, I hope that you will feel satisfied with the selection made this afternoon. In order that each member of the cast may be chosen on her merit alone, my old friend, Mr. Southard, kindly consented to come from Albany for the sole purpose of giving us the benefit of his great Shakespearian experience. Allow me to introduce Mr. Everett Southard."
He was greeted with a round of applause, and after bowing his thanks, the eminent actor plunged at once into the business at hand.
He spoke favorably of the idea of an all-girl cast, saying that each year many girls' colleges presented Shakespearian plays with marked success. The main thing to be considered was the intelligent delivery of the great dramatist's lines. The thing to do would be to find out what girls could most ably portray the various characters, it would be necessary to try each girl separately with a few lines from the play. In order to facilitate matters, he suggested that those girls who really desired speaking parts step to one side of the room, while those who wished merely to make the stage pictures, step to the other.
Out of the eighty girls, about thirty-five only stepped over to the side from which the principal characters were to be chosen. Many of the girls had no serious intentions whatever regarding the play, and the awe inspired by Mr. Southard's presence made them too timid to venture to open their mouths before him. Jessica, whose courage had fled, would have been among the latter if Nora had not seized her firmly by the arm as she prepared to flee and marched her over with the rest of the Phi Sigma Tau. Eleanor and Edna Wright were among the junior contestants, while there was a good showing of sophomores and freshmen.
Mr. Southard took in the aspirants with keen, comprehensive glance. His eyes rested a shade longer on Eleanor. She made a striking picture as she stood looking with apparent indifference at the girls about her.
Then his quick eye traveled to Grace's fine face and graceful figure, and then on to Anne, whose small face was alive with the excitement of the moment.
A breathless silence had fallen over the room. Every eye was fixed on the actor, who stood with a small leather-covered edition of "As You Like It" in his hand. Miss Tebbs stood by with a pencil and pad. The great try-out was about to begin.
CHAPTER XIX
THE TRY OUT
"Will the young lady on the extreme right please come forward?" said Mr.
Southard pleasantly, indicating Marian Barber, who rather timidly obeyed, taking the book he held out to her. At his request, she began to read from Orlando's entrance, in the first scene of the fourth act. She faltered a little on the first two lines, but shortly regained her courage and read on in her best manner. When she had read about a dozen lines he motioned for her to cease reading, said something to Miss Tebbs, who made an entry on her pad, and beckoned to the girl next to Marian to come forward.
Straight down the line he went, sometimes stopping a girl at her third or fourth line, rarely allowing them to read farther than the eleventh or twelfth.
Nora was the second Phi Sigma Tau to undergo the ordeal. As she briskly delivered the opening lines, the actor stopped her. Taking the book from her, he turned to the part where Touchstone, quaintly humorous, holds forth upon "the lie seven times removed."
"Read this," he said briefly, holding out the book to Nora.
Nora began and read glibly on, unconsciously emphasizing as she did so.
Down one page she read and half way through the next before Mr. Southard seemed satisfied.
Then he again held conversation with Miss Tebbs, who nodded and looked smilingly toward Nora, who stood scowling faintly, rather ill-pleased at attracting so much attention.
"It looks as though Nora had made an impression, doesn't it!" whispered Jessica to Grace, who was about to reply when Mr. Southard motioned to her. Grace, who knew the scene by heart, went fearlessly forward, and read the lines with splendid emphasis. Marian and Eva Allen followed her, and acquitted themselves with credit. Then Eleanor's turn came.
Handing her coat, which she had taken off and carried upon her arm, to Edna Wright, she walked proudly over, then, without a trace of self-consciousness, began the reading of the designated lines. Her voice sounded unusually clear and sweet, yet lacked something of the power of expression displayed by Grace in her rendering of the same scene. When she had finished she handed the book back with an air of studied indifference she was far from feeling. She had decided in her own mind that Rosalind was the part best suited to her, and felt that the honor now lay between herself and Grace. No other girls, with the exception of Nora, had been allowed to read as much of any scene as they two had been requested to read.
But Eleanor had reckoned without her host, for there was one girl who had not as yet come to the front. The girl was Anne Pierson, who in some mysterious manner had been all but overlooked, until Miss Tebbs spied her standing between Grace and Nora.
"Can you spare us a moment more, Mr. Southard?" said Miss Tebbs to the actor, who was preparing to leave. "You have almost missed hearing one of my best girls. Come here, Anne, and prove the truth of my words."
Grace drew a long breath of relief. She had eagerly awaited Anne's turn and was about to call Miss Tebbs's attention to Anne, just as that teacher had observed her.
As most of the girls present had heard Anne recite, there was a great craning of necks and a faint murmur of expectancy as she took her place.
They expected her to live up to her reputation and she had scarcely delivered the opening line before they realized that she would not disappoint them.
Her musical voice vibrated with expression and the mock-serious bantering tones in which she delivered Rosalind's witty speeches caused Mr. Southard to smile and nod approvingly as she gave full value to the immortal lines. Her change of voice from Rosalind to Orlando was wholly delightful, and so charmingly did she depict both characters that when she ended with Orlando's exit she received a little ovation from the listening girls, in which Mr. Southard and Miss Tebbs joined.
"She's won! She's won! I'm so glad," Grace said softly to Nora and Jessica. "I wanted her to play Rosalind, and I knew she could do it.
Look, girls! Mr. Southard is shaking hands with her."
True enough, Anne was shyly shaking hands with the great actor, who was congratulating her warmly upon her recent effort.
"I have never before heard an amateur read those lines as well as you have to-day, Miss Pierson," he said. "I am sure Rosalind will be safe with you, for few professional women could have done better. If I am anywhere near here when your play is enacted, I shall make it a point to come and see it."
Shaking hands warmly with Miss Tebbs and bowing to the admiring girls, Mr. Southard hurriedly departed, leaving his audience devoured with curiosity as to the chosen ones.
Anne stood perfectly still, looking rather dazed. The unexpected had happened. She was to have not only a part, but the best part, at that.
The girls gathered eagerly about her, congratulating her on her success, but she was too overcome to thank them, and smiled at them through a mist of tears.
"Look at Eleanor," whispered Nora to Grace. "She's so angry she can't see straight. She must have wanted to play Rosalind herself. I told you she'd sulk if she couldn't be the leading lady."
Grace glanced over toward Eleanor, who stood biting her lip, her hands clenched and her face set in angry lines.
"She looks like the 'Vendetta' or the 'Camorra' or some other Italian vengeance agency, doesn't she?" said Nora with a giggle.
Grace laughed in spite of herself at Nora's remark, but regretted it the next moment, for Eleanor saw the glances directed toward her and heard Nora's giggle. She turned white and half started toward Grace, then stopped, and, turning her back upon the Phi Sigma Tau, began talking to Edna Wright.
Just then Miss Tebbs, who had been busy with her list, announced that she would now name the cast, and all conversation ceased as by magic.