“You’ll excuse me, I’m sure,” the Secretary broke in, “if we go right on with our woik while you’re here.  We’re makin’ our own costoomes, as much as we can.  That was one reason us young ladies chose Hamlet.  It’s a play what everyone wears skoits in.  It’s easier for us and it ain’t so embarrassing, and I guess our folks will like it better.  You have to think of your folks sometimes.  Even if they are old-fashioned.  Miss Masters got us pictures of Mr. Marsden’s production an’ every last one of the characters has skoits on.  Hamlet’s ain’t no longer than a bathin’ suit, but anyway it’s there.  I don’t think it’s real refined, myself, for young ladies to wear gents’ suits on the stage.”

“And of course,” a gentle-eyed little girl looked up from her sewing to remark,—­“of course this club ain’t formed just for makin’ shirt waists.  We’ve got a culture-an’-refinement clause in the club constitution, so we wouldn’t want to do nothin’ that wasn’t real refined.”

[Illustration:  Burgess gained an interest and an occupation more absorbing than he had found for many years.]

“I understand,” said Burgess more at a loss than a conversation had ever found him, “And what may I ask, is your part of the play?”

“Mamie Conners is too nervous,” the lady President explained “to come right out and act.  She’s ‘A flourish of trumpets within an’ a voice without an’ a lady of the court an’ a soldier an’ a choir boy at the funeral.’”

“Ah, Miss Conners,” Burgess assured this timid but versatile Hyacinth, “that’s only stage fright, all great actresses suffer from it at one time or another.”

* * * * *

During the weeks that followed, order gradually gained sway in Denmark and Burgess gained an interest and an occupation more absorbing than he had found for many years.

“My dear Margaret,” he was wont to assure Miss Masters, when she remonstrated with him upon his generosity, “Why shouldn’t I order supper to be sent in for them? and why shouldn’t I ask them up to the house for rehearsals?  There’s the big music room going to waste and those lazy beggars of servants with nothing to do, and you saw yourself how it brightened up poor old Aunt Priscilla.  She likes it—­they like it—­I like it—­you ought to like it.  And you certainly can’t object to my having taken them en masse to see Marsden in the play.  By George!  I’ll drag him to theirs.  We’ll show him an Ophelia! that Mary Conners is a little genius.”

“She is wonderful,” agreed Miss Masters.  “The grace of her!  The dignity!  What she herself would call the culture-an’-refinement!”

“All my discovery.  That tyrant of a Rosie Rosenbaum had cast her as a quick change, general utility woman.  And in the day-time you tell me she’s a miserable little shop-girl in a Grand Street rookery!”