An expectant silence fell over the room , and Mr. Perkins ' face lost the look of tense anxiety it had worn all the evening . Here was a performer who could be depended on . No need to fear stage fright or forgetfulness on her part . The Story Girl was not looking her best that night . White never became her , and her face was pale , though her eyes were splendid . But nobody thought about her appearance when the power and magic of her voice caught and held her listeners spellbound . Her recitation was an old one , figuring in one of the School Readers , and we scholars all knew it off by heart . Sara Ray alone had not heard the Story Girl recite it . The latter had not been drilled at practices as had the other pupils , Mr. Perkins choosing not to waste time teaching her what she already knew far better than he did . The only time she had recited it had been at the `` dress rehearsal '' two nights before , at which Sara Ray had not been present . In the poem a Florentine lady of old time , wedded to a cold and cruel husband , had died , or was supposed to have died , and had been carried to `` the rich , the beautiful , the dreadful tomb '' of her proud family . In the night she wakened from her trance and made her escape . Chilled and terrified , she had made her way to her husband 's door , only to be driven away brutally as a restless ghost by the horror-stricken inmates . A similar reception awaited her at her father 's . Then she had wandered blindly through the streets of Florence until she had fallen exhausted at the door of the lover of her girlhood . He , unafraid , had taken her in and cared for her . On the morrow , the husband and father , having discovered the empty tomb , came to claim her . She refused to return to them and the case was carried to the court of law . The verdict given was that a woman who had been `` to burial borne '' and left for dead , who had been driven from her husband 's door and from her childhood home , `` must be adjudged as dead in law and fact , '' was no more daughter or wife , but was set free to form what new ties she would . The climax of the whole selection came in the line , `` The court pronounces the defendant -- DEAD ! ''
and the Story XXXXX was wont to render it with such dramatic intensity and power that the veriest dullard among her listeners could not have missed its force and significance .
Florence Girl Perkins Ray before escape evening girlhood left night