We all felt relieved when she finished . She was , in a sense , one of `` our crowd , '' and we had been afraid she would disgrace us by breaking down . Felicity followed her and recited her selection without haste , without rest , and absolutely without any expression whatever . But what mattered it how she recited ? To look at her was sufficient . What with her splendid fleece of golden curls , her great , brilliant blue eyes , her exquisitely tinted face , her dimpled hands and arms , every member of the audience must have felt it was worth the ten cents he had paid merely to see her . The Story Girl followed . 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 XXXXX her father 's .
about as at by from on over though with without