down which the girls advanced when called to receive their prizes,
stretched its blue and slender length.

'His Grace is coming!' a nun cried, running in, and instantly the
babbling of voices ceased, and four girls hastened to the pianos placed
on either side of the stage, two left-hands struck a series of chords in
the bass, the treble notes replied, and, to the gallant measure of a
French polka, a stately prelate entered, smiling benediction as he
advanced, the soft clapping of feminine palms drowning, for a moment,
the slangy strains of the polka.

When the Bishop was seated on his high throne, the back of which
extended some feet above his head, and as soon as the crowd of visitors
had been accommodated with chairs around him, a nun made her way through
the room, seeking anxiously among the girls. She carried in her hand a
basket filled with programmes, all rolled and neatly tied with pieces of
different coloured ribbon. These she distributed to the ten tiniest
little children she could find, and, advancing five from either side,
they formed in a line and curtsied to the Bishop. One little dot, whose
hair hung about her head like a golden mist, nearly lost her balance;
she was, however, saved from falling by a companion, and then, like a
group of kittens, they tripped down the strip of blue carpet and handed
the programmes to the guests, who leaned forward as if anxious to touch
their hands, to stroke their shining hair.

The play was now ready to begin, and Alice felt she was going from hot
to cold, for when the announcement printed on the programme, that she
was the author of the comedy of _King Cophetua_ had been read, all eyes
were fixed upon her; the Bishop, after eyeing her intently, bent towards
the Reverend Mother and whispered to her. Cecilia clasped Alice's hand