Louis’s comment on the return of his sister to her work at Miss Copeland’s school was much like that of Ruth.  “Sorry vacation’s over, Rob?  That’s where I have the advantage of you.  The office never closes for more than a day; therefore I’m always in training.”

“That’s an advantage, surely enough.  But I’m ready to go back.  As I was telling Ruth this morning, I’m anxious to know whether Olivia Cartwright has forgotten her lines, and whether she’s going to be able to infuse a bit of life into her Petruchio.  This trying to make a schoolgirl play a big man’s part—­”

“You could do it, yourself,” observed Louis, even as Ruth had done.

“And shouldn’t I love to!  I’m just longing to stride about the stage in Petruchio’s boots.”

“I’ll wager you are.  I’d like to see you do it.  But the part of Katherine would be the thing for you—­fascinating shrew that you could be.”

“This—­from a brother!  Yes, I’d like to play Katherine, too.  But give me the boots, if you please.  Do you happen to remember Olivia Cartwright?”

“Of course I do.  And a mighty pretty and interesting girl she is.  I should think she might make a Petruchio for you.”

“I thought she would.  But the boots seem to have a devastating effect.  The minute she gets them on—­even in imagination, for we haven’t had a dress rehearsal yet—­her voice grows softer and her manner more lady-like.  It’s the funniest thing I ever knew, to hear her say the lines—­

“’What is this? mutton?... 
’Tis burnt, and so is all the meat. 
What dogs are these?  Where is the rascal cook?

“How durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser,
And serve it thus to me that love it not? 
  There, take it to you, trenchers, cups and all,
You heedless joltheads and unmannered slaves!’”

Passersby along the street beheld a young man consumed with mirth as Louis Gray heard these stirring words issuing from his sister’s pretty mouth in a clever imitation of the schoolgirl Petruchio’s “lady-like” tones.

“Now speak those lines as you would if you wore the boots,” he urged, when he had recovered his gravity.

Roberta waited till they were at a discreet distance from other pedestrians, then delivered the lines as she had already spoken them for her pupil twenty times or more, with a spirit and temper which gave them their character as the assumed bluster they were meant to picture.

“Good!” cried Louis.  “Great!  But you see, Sis, you have learned the absolute control of your voice, and that’s a thing few schoolgirls have mastered.  Besides, not every girl has a throat like yours.”