“Finished your outline, Betty?” Lois called out as the girls were leaving the schoolroom after the last bell one afternoon.

“Certainly not,” answered Betty excitedly. “I started to read just the first scene, but when I got to ‘By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-weary of this great world,’ at the beginning of the second scene, why I just read on all the last period.”

It was the first lesson of the Freshman class on “The Merchant of Venice.” They had finished Goldsmith’s “Deserted Village,” and this was their first taste of Shakespeare.

“Hadn’t you read it before?” questioned Polly. “I have, and I adore it.”

“Adore what?”

It was Lois speaking, of course. She had a habit of coming up unexpectedly and hearing the last couple of words of a sentence.

“The Merchant of Venice,” explained Polly. “Have you started it?”

“Yes. I read it, the last two periods. I’m as far as ‘My Daughter! O my ducats!’ I nearly died laughing over Launcelot Gobbo.”

It was a miserable day; the sun seemed to have abdicated in favor of his brother, the storm cloud, and the rain was falling in torrents. Betty turned disconsolately towards the window. They were standing in the schoolroom corridor.

“Looks as if we were in for another deluge,” she groaned. “Not even a chance of a let-up. Now, if it would only freeze!”

“What can we do?” sighed Lois. “Assembly Hall will be mobbed by the lower school girls, and you know the noise they make.”

“I have it!” exclaimed Polly. “Let’s get permission from Miss Porter to use the English room, and then each take parts and read ‘The Merchant of Venice’ aloud.”

“Polly, you’re a genius; it’s the very thing,” chorused Lois and Betty.

They started off in the direction of the classroom, but as they passed the Bridge of Sighs, they were stopped by the two Dorothys.

“Where are you going? Come on up to the corridor. Miss King has lent us the electric stove from the infirmary, and we’re going to make candy,” they invited.

“It’s quite regular,” added Dot Mead, by way of explanation. “We have permission.”

Dot had often tried to inveigle the three girls into joining various midnight feasts and forbidden larks of which she was the originator, but had always found them singularly unresponsive.

Don’t think they were prudes, far from it, but they had learned through close observation that not enough pleasure could be derived from breaking rules to compensate them for the loss of the faculty’s respect and trust. And, above all, their loyalty and love for Seddon Hall prompted them to keep the few simple rules required of them.

Betty regarded the two girls with lofty disdain and assuming an attitude peculiar to the long-suffering chaplain, began in imitation of his manner:

“There would seem a certain amount of er—er—one might say—attractiveness in your suggestion to an outsider, Dorothy, my child, one, let us say, not familiar with your ability as a cook. For me, however, the invitation holds no charms. Last time, if you’ll remember, you put hair oil in the taffy in place of the vanilla. I need hardly refer to the disastrous results.” And clasping her hands behind her back, the wicked little mimic walked off down the corridor, adding over her shoulder: “Good afternoon, my dear young ladies, good afternoon.”

By this time the girls were holding their sides with laughter. Finally Dorothy managed to ask very weakly:

“Then what are you going to do?”

“There’s not the slightest use in telling you, for you’d never believe it,” Polly answered. “Still, as you’ve asked, I’ll tell you. We are going to study.”

This startling announcement was too much for the Dorothys, and when Lois and Polly left them, to follow Betty, they were lying in mock faints on the corridor floor.

The three girls proceeded to English room and knocked gently on the door.

“Come in,” called Miss Porter’s voice from the other side.

She was a short, dark, little lady, with glowing black eyes and unlimited enthusiasm. She was very bashful out of the classroom and the girls, as a whole, knew very little of her. Just now she was correcting Senior papers and was a little surprised at being interrupted.

As the three girls entered the room Lois, ever the spokesman in serious matters, began:

“Oh, are we disturbing you, Miss Porter? We didn’t think you’d be busy and we wanted permission to sit in here and read ‘The Merchant of Venice’ aloud.”

“You see,” added Polly, “we thought it would be fun for each to take parts and—and—” she was floundering for words.

“And act it,” finished Miss Porter. “Do you really like it, girls? I am so glad. Sit down, of course.” Then regretfully: “I’ll be finished in a minute.”

Betty caught the regret in her voice and exclaimed impulsively:

“Won’t you stay? It would be so much nicer; you can’t have anything to do on this miserable day.”

Lois and Polly added their pleas to hers and in the end Miss Porter remained.

They decided that Lois take the part of Portia and Jessica; Polly, Nerissa and Bassanio; Betty, Antonio, Gratiano, and Lorenzo, and they all insisted on Miss Porter being Shylock. They took turns with the smaller parts.

They had rather improvised stage property, but they managed to get on somehow until they reached the casket scene.

“Now what under the sun are we going to use for the caskets?” demanded Betty.

“We might use the ‘Standard Dictionary’ for the lead one,” suggested Miss Porter; “and here’s the ‘Cyclopedia of Names’—that might do for the silver one.”

“I’ve found the very thing for the gold casket,” announced Lois, who was standing in front of the bookcase: “A complete set of Shakespeare in one volume.”

“The very thing,” they agreed.

The stage setting was arranged and the play continued. Betty constituted herself the musician and sang: “Tell me where is fancy bred, etc.,” to a tune all her own.

An hour passed and they started the fourth act.

“I don’t feel a bit like a judge,” announced Lois, “and, Miss Porter, you ought to have a beard, but never mind. Let’s see; this is the court room and—”

“The judge ought to sit in a prominent place,” interrupted Betty. “I know—a chair up there.” And she swung a light cane visitor’s chair on the English room’s dignified and highly polished oak desk.

The stage ready, the scene began. Bassanio pleaded with Shylock for Antonio’s life, but Shylock gloatingly demanded his pound of flesh. Portia, as the learned judge, made answer.

“A pound of that same merchant’s flesh is thine: The Court awards it, and the law doth give it.”

Shylock rubbed his hands together joyously and gurgled: “Most rightful judge!”

Portia: “And you must cut this flesh from off his breast: The law allows it, and the court awards it.”

Shylock: “Most learned judge! A sentence! Come, prepare!”

Then Lois rose and, holding up a warning arm, began with suppressed excitement, while they all watched her, intent on the coming speech.

Portia:

“Candy,” called a voice from the hall, and in a second the door opened and Uncle Roddy, preceded by Mrs. Baird, entered.

Lois nearly toppled off the desk in her surprise and Miss Porter, who had fallen, groveling on the floor, at the words “no jot of blood,” scrambled to her feet with a very red face.

“Uncle Roddy!” exclaimed Polly, “where did you come from?” And she threw her arms around his neck.

“From Buffalo, my dear,” answered Uncle Roddy. “I found I could stop over here for a couple of hours on my way home. I am so glad I did, for I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Please introduce me to the rest of the company.”

Mrs. Baird made the introductions and then turned to leave them. Before she closed the door she said:

“Girls, if you have been at this all the afternoon, I think you might be excused from study hour.” Then to Polly she added: “I’ll send tea to the reception-room at once.”

Of course Uncle Roddy insisted on “the companies” joining them for tea. Miss Porter had to decline the invitation on account of a special class at 4:30, but Betty and Lois accepted with pleasure.

After they were comfortably settled in the reception-room, Uncle Roddy asked:

“Miss Farwell, are you, by any chance, related to Doctor Walter Farwell?”

“I should think so,” laughed Lois. “I’m his daughter. Do you know him?”

“I used to go to college with him. We were great pals, then, but after we graduated he went West and I went to England, and we lost track of each other.”

“I’ll write him about you this very night,” answered Lois excitedly. “Isn’t it fun to think you know each other?”

Uncle Roddy smiled. “I’d like to see old Walter again,” he said.

The tea arrived and Polly served. Every one did justice to it and the hot buttered toast.

“How long had you and Mrs. Baird been listening at the door, Mr. Pendleton?” inquired Betty as she dropped four lumps of sugar into her cup.

“Long enough to feel sure that you will make a very great actress one of these days,” laughed Uncle Roddy.

“Actress!” she exclaimed, taken by surprise. “Certainly not! I intend to write.”

The secret was out and Betty, who had never intended telling any one her one great wish, was terribly confused.

Uncle Roddy, however, was deeply interested, and he talked books with her for the rest of his visit. He was greatly surprised that any one so young should have read and appreciated so much.

Polly and Lois joined in the conversation every now and then, but contented themselves most of the time with the candy that Uncle Roddy had brought, which, by the way, was five pounds instead of one.

When his time was up, the three girls escorted him to the door.

“I’ve had a splendid time,” he told them. “I’ll surely send you that book,” he added to Betty, and then turning to Lois he called: “Don’t forget to give my regards to your father.”

After a last kiss and hug for Polly, he closed the front door, and the girls watched him jump into his cab.

“Do you know, Polly,” announced Betty, as they returned to the corridor, “I adore that uncle of yours.”

“So do I,” agreed Lois; “he’s a duck, and I’m so glad he and Dad know each other.”

Polly smiled happily.

“Funny thing,” she replied, “but do you know, so do I.”

As the carriage jogged through the mud on its way to the station, Uncle Roddy decided that visiting and having tea with three very interesting and lively young ladies was much more entertaining then he had expected.