any moment. Alcie's mother roped me in; it's to be given in her garden at Brookline. Of course we all wanted roles in the pageant thing, and I thought for sure I'd get one, but no, they sent me out to wheedle bank presidents into being patrons. The chief parts are twelve famous women in history, and after a lot of spilt blood twelve girls were chosen and put through their paces. Alcie's father, who's an old rip, persuaded Janvier to sing at the fête as a special drawing card and to coach the girls, so today she was dragged over from the Copley Plaza, all hot and cross, with a young man that looks like a human lap dog.
"If you could have seen her making those poor things do everything different from the way they'd been directed! She cut out parts and put in others, scolded, threatened to walk out, but gradually warmed to it and galvanized them all into life—all but Hilda Venables, who is stunning to look at but mentally nul and void. Hilda was supposed to be Jeanne d'Arc and she was drooping around the Pender ballroom like Ophelia looking for a muddy stream to lie down in. Janvier finally stopped the whole show and said Hilda couldn't do the part. 'That girl wouldn't hear angels if they used megaphones,' said Janvier, 'and if she ever led an army into battle the war would be over before she got there.' . . . General consternation. Hilda in hysterics. And dear old Mrs. Venables, who's literary and thought up the whole idea, was sitting there, her pride in ruins, being perfectly sweet about
