The Luckiest Girl in the School | Page 8

seemed rather a
forlorn hope, and she feared it would scarcely satisfy her examiners,
but in such a desperate situation anything was worth trying. Winona
possessed a certain facility in essay writing. Prose composition had
been her favorite lesson at Miss Harmon's. She collected her wits now,
and did the very utmost of which she was capable in the matter of style.
Choosing question No. 4, "Write a life of Lady Jane Grey," she
proceeded to treat the subject in as post-impressionist a manner as
possible. The pathetic tragedy of the young Queen had always appealed
to her imagination, and she could have had no more congenial a theme
upon which to write, if she had been given free choice of all the
characters in the history book.
"'Whom the gods love die young,'" she began, and paused. It seemed an
excellent opening, if she could only continue in the same strain, but
what ought to come next? Her thoughts flew to a painting of Lady Jane
Grey, which she had once seen at a loan collection of Tudor portraits.
Why should she not describe it? Her pen flew rapidly as she wrote a
word-picture of the sweet, pale face, so round and childish in spite of
its earnest expression; the smooth yellow hair, the gray eyes bent
demurely over the book. Her heroine seemed beginning to live. Now
for her surroundings. A year ago Winona had paid a visit to Hampton
Court, and her remembrance of its associations was still keen and vivid.
She described its old-world garden by the side of the Thames, where
the little King Edward VI. must often have roamed with his pretty
cousin Jane: the two wonderful ill-starred children, playing for a brief
hour in happy unconsciousness of the fate that faced them. What did
they talk about, she asked, as they stood on the paved terrace and
watched the river hurrying by? Plato, perchance, and his philosophy, or
the marvelous geography-book with woodcuts of foreign beasts that
had been specially printed for the young king's use. Did they compare
notes about their tutors? Jane would certainly hold a brief for her
much-loved Mr. Elmer, who, in sharp contrast to her parents' severity,
taught her so gently and patiently that she grudged the time which was
not spent in his presence. Edward might bemoan the ill-luck of his

whipping-boy, who had to bear the floggings which Court etiquette
denied to the royal shoulders, and perhaps would declare that when he
was grown up, and could make the laws himself, no children should be
beaten for badly said lessons, and Jane would agree with him, and then
they would pick the red damask roses that Cardinal Wolsey had planted,
and walk back under the shadow of the clipped yew hedge to eat
cherries and junket in the room that looked out towards the sunset.
Winona had warmed to her work. Her imagination, always her
strongest faculty, completely carried her away. She pictured her
heroine's life, not from the outside, as historians would chronicle it, a
mere string of events and dates, but from the inner view of a girl's
standpoint. Did Jane wish to leave her Plato for the bustle of a Court?
Did she care for the gay young husband forced upon her by her
ambitious parents? Surely for her gentle nature a crown held few
allurements. The clouds were gathering thick and fast, and burst in a
waterspout of utter ruin. Jane's courage was calm and hopeful as that of
Socrates in the dialogues she had loved.
"... your soul was pure and true, The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire and dew."
quoted Winona enthusiastically. Browning always stirred her blood,
and threw her into poetical channels. She cast about in her mind for any
other appropriate verses.
"Ah, broken is the golden bowl, the spirit gone for ever, Let the bell
toll--a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river. Come, let the burial rite
be read--the funeral song be sung, An anthem for the queenliest dead
that ever died so young, A dirge for her, the doubly dead, in that she
died so young."
"So they finished their foul deed, and laid her to rest," wrote Winona,
"the earthly part, that is, which perishes, for the true part of her they
could not touch. Farewell, sweet innocent soul, of whom the world was
not worthy. To you surely may apply Andre de Chénier's tender lines:
"'Au banquet de la vie à peine commencé Un instant seulement mes

lèvres out pressé La coupe en mes mains encore pleine.'
Vale, little Queen! May it be well with thee! Ave atque vale!"
Winona glanced anxiously at the clock as with a hard breath she paused
for a moment and laid down her