“I see a young girl,” began Agony, “tending her flocks in the valley of the Meuse.  She is sitting under a large beech, which the children of the village have named the ‘Fairy Tree.’  As she sits there her face takes on a rapt look; she sits very still, like one in a trance, for her eyes are looking upon a remarkable sight.  She seems to see a shining figure standing before her; an angel with a flaming sword.  She falls upon her knees and covers her face with her hands, and when she looks up again the vision is gone and only the tree is left, with the church beyond it.”

“Joan of Arc!” cried three or four voices at once.

“O, how I wish I were she!” finished Agony fervently.  “What a life of excitement she must have led!  Think of the stirring times she must have had in the army!”

“I envy her all but the stake; I couldn’t have borne that,” said Sahwah.  “Now you, Gladys.”

“I see a young English girl, fourteen years old, dressed in the costume of Tudor England, stealing out of Westminster Palace with the boy king of England, Edward the Sixth.  Free from the tiresome lords and ladies-in-waiting who were always at their heels in the palace, they have a gorgeous time wandering about the streets of London until by chance they meet one of the royal household, and are hustled back to the palace in short order.”

“Poor Lady Jane Grey!” said Migwan.  “I’m glad I wasn’t in her shoes.  I’m glad I’m not in any royalty’s shoes.  With all their pomp and splendor they never have half the fun we’re having at this minute,” she continued vehemently.  “They never went off on a hike by themselves and slept on the ground with their heads under a canoe.  It’s lots nicer to be free, even if you are a nobody.”

“I think so too,” Sahwah agreed with her emphatically.

“My girl,” said Jo, in her turn, “was crowned queen at the age of nine months and betrothed to the King of France when she was five years old.  That’s all I know about her early days, except that she had four intimate friends all named Mary.”

“Mary, Queen of Scots,” guessed Gladys, who was taking a history course in college.  “Somehow I never could get up much sympathy for her; she seemed such a spineless sort of creature.  I always preferred Queen Elizabeth, even if she did cut off Mary’s head.”

“Every single one of the heroines so far has died a violent death,” remarked Miss Amesbury.  “Is that the only kind of women you admire?”

“It seems so,” replied Migwan, laughing.  “We’re a bloodthirsty lot.  Go on, Katherine.”

Katherine dropped the log she was carrying upon the fire and kept her eye upon it as she spoke.  “I see a brilliant assemblage, gathered in the palace of the Empress of Austria to hear a wonderful boy musician play on the piano.  As the young lad, who is none other than the great Mozart, enters the room, he first approaches the Empress to make his bow to her.  The polished floor is extremely slippery, and he slips and falls flat.  The courtiers, who consider him very clumsy, do nothing but laugh at him, but the young daughter of the Empress runs forward, helps him to his feet and comforts him with soothing words.”