and besides these, there was the absorbing little drama of human life which was being enacted all around us, and in which each of us played a satisfying part -- the gay preparations for aunt olivia's mid-june wedding, the excitement of practising for the concert with which our school-teacher, mr. perkins, had elected to close the school year, and cecily's troubles with cyrus brisk, which furnished unholy mirth for the rest of us, though cecily could not see the funny side of it at all.