Mr. Kingsland clapped his hands softly.  ‘Safe yet,’ he said.  ‘But where did Kitty pick up that name for her?’ he added, turning to his next neighbour.  ’You are in the way of such titles.’

‘Kitty won’t tell,’ the lady answered, an elaborate Queen Elizabeth.  ’Not at present.  She found out nobody understood, but Miss Kennedy does, so now she holds it over Miss Kennedy’s head that she will tell.  That is the way she got her before the glass the other night.’

‘The tenderness these gentle creatures have for each other!’ said Mr. Kingsland.

Meantime a bustling crowd had been pouring in and filling the saloon, and there began to be a cry for silence.  The curtain was down; by whom dropped no one knew; but now it was raised again by the proper attendants, and the sight of the cool green little stage brought people to their good behaviour.  The silence of expectancy spread through the assembly.

Behind the scenes there was a trifle of delay.

‘My dear child,’ Mme. Lasalle whispered to the ci-devant witch of Endor, ’Mr. Lasalle is in no condition to act with you as he promised.  Ill; really ill, you know.  We must take some one else.  Standing about with bare feet don’t agree with his constitution.  It won’t matter.’

‘It matters very much!’ said Wych Hazel.  ’O, well—­just leave that charade out.  There are enough more.’

‘Indeed there are not!’ exclaimed her hostess.  ’We cannot spare this.  Indeed I doubt if any other will be worth presenting after it.  My dear, it makes no difference! and you are ready, and Stuart is ready, and the people are waiting.  You must not fail me at the pinch, Hazel.  Go on and do your prettiest, for my sake.’

’Not with Mr. Nightingale.  I will have little Jemmy Seaton, then.  He is tall enough.’

’He couldn’t do it.  Nonsense, my dear! you don’t mean that there is anything serious in it?  It is only a play, and a short one too; and Stuart will be, privately, a great improvement on Mr. Lasalle, who wouldn’t have done it with spirit enough; as why should he?  Come, go on!  Stuart is not worse to play with than another, is he?  Come! there’s Mr. Brandevin waiting for you.  He’s capital!’

There was no time to debate the matter; no time to make further changes; everybody was waiting; Miss Kennedy had to yield.

The first act was on this fashion.  An old man in the blouse of a Normandy peasant sat smoking his pipe.  Enter to him his daughter, a lovely peasant girl; Wych Hazel to wit.  The father spoke in French; the daughter mingled French and English in her talk very prettily.  There was some dumb show of serving him; and then the old man got up to go out, charging his daughter in the severest manner to admit no company in his absence.  Scarcely is he gone, when enter on the other side a smart young man in the same peasant dress.  Words here were not audible.  In dumb show the young man made