Felix got through his without `` getting stuck , '' and Peter did excellently , though he stuffed his hands in his trousers pockets -- a habit of which Mr. Perkins had vainly tried to break him . Peter 's recitation was one greatly in vogue at that time , beginning , `` My name is Norval ; on the Grampian hills My father feeds his flocks . '' At our first practice Peter had started gaily in , rushing through the first line with no thought whatever of punctuation -- `` My name is Norval on the Grampian Hills . '' `` Stop , stop , Peter , '' quoth Mr. Perkins , sarcastically , `` your name might be Norval if you were never on the Grampian Hills . There 's a semi-colon in that line , I wish you to remember . '' Peter did remember it . Cecily neither fainted nor failed when it came her turn . She recited her little piece very well , though somewhat mechanically . I think she really did much better than if she had had her desired curls . The miserable conviction that her hair , alone among that glossy-tressed bevy , was looking badly , quite blotted out all nervousness and self-consciousness from her mind . Her hair apart , she looked very pretty . The prevailing excitement had made bright her eye and flushed her cheeks rosily -- too rosily , perhaps . I heard a Carlisle woman behind me whisper that Cecily King looked consumptive , just like her Aunt Felicity ; and I hated her fiercely for it . Sara Ray also managed to get through respectably , although she was pitiably nervous . Her bow was naught but a short nod -- `` as if her head worked on wires , '' whispered Felicity uncharitably -- and the wave of her lily-white hand more nearly resembled an agonized jerk than a wave . 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 XXXXX the audience must have felt it was worth the ten cents he had paid merely to see her .
At behind by if of quoth though through with without