On account of her height and breadth of shoulder, Augusta Forbes had been asked to take the part of Lord Carstairs. For several days after Leila had requisitioned her services as an actor, she went about with her head in the clouds. Her chums were no less pleased over the honor that had fallen to “Gus.” Neither had they been forgotten. The play required a large number of extra persons for courtiers, ladies in waiting, etc. The Bertram girls were among the first invited to grace the stage in these minor rôles.
Luckily for the managers of the performance, the cedar chest in the attic furnished enough really gorgeous court costumes to fit out the principal male characters. This was due to the fact of the small percentage of women in the Shakespearian dramas for which the costumes had been originally fashioned. As neither Leila, Vera, Helen nor Martha Merrick were overburdened with subjects, they took upon themselves the getting together of the costumes for the feminine contingent.
On a Friday evening, the latter part of January, “The Maid of Honor” was presented to an overflowing house. The gymnasium had, as usual, served as theatre on account of its seating capacity. While the stage of Greek Hall was much better as a stage, its auditorium would hold not more than two hundred persons.
Actors, author and managers received enough applause during the play, and enough adulation afterward, to turn their youthful heads. Honors were so evenly divided among the principals it was hard to say who deserved the most praise. Katherine, as author, received, perhaps, the most admiring tribute of them all.
Acting upon Jerry’s shrewd advice, two dollars had been set as the price of admission with no reserved seats. She had argued that two dollars was less than persons of their means usually paid for seats at a theatre. In order not to leave out the off-the-campus girls, Ronny had counted them up and bought tickets for them. These she commissioned Anna Towne to distribute with the stern warning: “Don’t one of your crowd dare stay away from our play.”
The net receipts of the play amounted to eleven hundred, forty dollars, which the gratified managers banked with gleeful satisfaction. Immediately they set to work on a new play, also by Kathie, entitled, “The Wyshinge Welle,” a drama of the Saxons in Ethelbert’s time. This was hailed with jubilation by Leila, who was especially fond of the life of this period of history. The latter part of February would see its presentation. If the promoters of drama at Hamilton found it did not interfere too greatly with their studies, they planned to give two more plays, a musical revue and a concert before the closing of the college in June.