I was requested to stand up in the pulpit and read from a large Bible the fourteenth chapter of John, and the twenty-third psalm.

That was easy enough.

Next request, "Please recite something comic." I gave them "Comic Miseries." "Now try a little pathos." I recited Alice Cary's "The Volunteer," which was one of my favourite poems.

Then I heard a professor say to Mr.
Crittenden, "She recites with great taste and expression; what a pity she has that lisp!" And hitherto I had been blissfully unaware of such a failing.

One other selection in every-day prose, and I was let off.
The faculty were now exchanging their opinions and soon dispersed without one word to me.