Part 21

ELIZABETH ELIZA.--I am sorry enough I lost the exhibition, and seeing you take the diploma, Amanda. I never got the diploma myself. I came near it.

MRS. PETERKIN.--Somehow, Elizabeth Eliza never succeeded. I think there was partiality about the promotions.

ELIZABETH ELIZA.--I never was good about remembering things. I studied well enough, but, when I came to say off my lesson, I couldn’t think what it was. Yet I could have answered some of the other girls’ questions.

JULIA.--It’s odd how the other girls always have the easiest questions.

ELIZABETH ELIZA.--I never could remember poetry There was only one thing I could repeat.

AMANDA.--Oh, do let us have it now; and then we’ll recite to you some of our exhibition pieces.

ELIZABETH ELIZA.--I’ll try.

MRS. PETERKIN.--Yes, Elizabeth Eliza, do what you can to help entertain Amanda’s friends.

AMANDA.--It can’t be Nebuchadnezzar, can it?--that is one of the longest names I know.

ELIZABETH ELIZA.--O dear, no!

JULIA.--Perhaps it’s Cleopatra.

ELIZABETH ELIZA.--It does begin with a “C”--only he was a boy.

AMANDA.--That’s a pity, for it might be “We are seven,” only that is a girl. Some of them were boys.

ELIZABETH ELIZA.--It begins about a boy--if I could only think where he was. I can’t remember.

AMANDA.--Perhaps he “stood upon the burning deck?”

ELIZABETH ELIZA.--That’s just it; I knew he stood somewhere.

AMANDA.--Casablanca! Now begin--go ahead.

ELIZABETH ELIZA.--“The boy stood on the burning deck, When--When--” I can’t think who stood there with him.

JULIA.--If the deck was burning, it must have been on fire. I guess the rest ran away, or jumped into boats.

AMANDA.--That’s just it:--“Whence all but him had fled.”

ELIZABETH ELIZA.--I think I can say it now.

“The boy stood on the burning deck, Whence all but him had fled---”

JULIA.--Of course, he fled after the rest.

AMANDA.--Dear, no! That’s the point. He didn’t.

“The flames rolled on, he would not go Without his father’s word.”

ELIZABETH ELIZA.--O yes. Now I can say it.

“The boy stood on the burning deck, Whence all but him had fled; The flames rolled on, he would not go Without his father’s word.”

But it used to rhyme. I don’t know what has happened to it.