The Prince and the Princess went away together at last; she with a long velvet cloak covering the whiteness of her gown, and a hat with white plumes, and he with a sword at his side, that made Tommy Tolliver turn green with envy.

Jimmie Jones came down and sat by Bobbie Green during the intermission, in which lemonade was passed and the pictures discussed.

Bobbie gazed upon him as one who has come from a strange country.

“Say, say,” he whispered eagerly, “how could you sleep when we was makin’ all that noise, Jimmie—­clappin’?”

Jimmie took a long blissful gulp of lemonade, and then fished out the strawberry from the bottom of the glass.  “Ho,” he said, “that wasn’t nothin’.  It wasn’t really me that was asleep, it was just my eyes,” and Bobbie, though still hazy, accepted the explanation and fished for his strawberry in imitation of his distinguished friend and actor, Jimmie Jones!

Most of the children had read parts of “Elaine” at school, and they “Oh-ed” and “Ah-ed” as the fair-haired heroine appeared.

Anne was very sweet, very appealing, as she went through the sad little scenes, and when at last she sat at the window.  Dr. Grennell did not read Elaine’s song, but Anne sang it, to Judy’s accompaniment, played softly behind the scenes.

  “Sweet is true love, tho’ given in vain, in vain;
  And sweet is death who puts an end to pain: 
  I know not which is sweeter, no, not I.”

And all the little girls wept into their handkerchiefs, while the boys sniffed audibly.

“Bless their hearts,” said Mrs. Batcheller to Miss Mary, “it’s too bad to have them cry.”

But the Judge, who was a keen observer of human nature, shook his head.  “A little sadness now and then won’t hurt them,” he said.  “It is the shadows that make us appreciate the sunshine, you know.”

There was a long wait before the curtain was raised on the last picture in the poem:  “The dead steer’d by the dumb.”

The barge had been a problem, until Judy solved it by placing an ironing-board across two chairs, and draping the whole into the semblance of a boat-like bier.

Perkins, under protest, was pressed into service as the dumb boatman, and with a long beard of white cotton, and a cloak and hood of funereal black, he was a picturesque and pessimistic figure.

“It’s so wobbly,” said Anne, powdered with corn-starch to an interesting paleness and draped all in white.  “It’s so wobbly, Judy,” and she shrieked softly, as she laid herself flat on the ironing-board.

“Steady,” advised Launcelot, as he shifted her carefully to the center, “now for the lily and the letter, Judy,” and he threw over the prostrate Anne a yellow silk shawl of Judy’s which was to serve as cloth of gold.

“Now, Perkins,” and Perkins climbed to the high stool, which had been set in an armchair and formed the bow of the boat.