“If I falls, I falls,” said Perkins, classically, “and my blood be on your head, sir,” and while Judy writhed in agonies of laughter, Launcelot turned off the lights and adjusted the great lantern, which was to throw on the barge the effect of moonlight, while all else was to be in shadow.

The illusion from the front was perfect.  Even the green piano cover with its dots of white cotton foamed up around the barge like real waves.

“How lovely she is,” whispered all the children, as Anne lay there so still and quiet, with her fair hair streaming over the blackness of the bier.

“I don’t like it.  I don’t like it,” whimpered Bobbie Green, whose imagination was a thing to be reckoned with.  “I don’t like it.  Anne, oh, Anne—­”

And Anne’s tender heart could not withstand that cry of fear.

“I’m all right, darling,” she said, right out, and then the tension was broken, and all the children laughed, with relief, as Elaine sat up smiling and waving her hand to them.

“Bobbie Shafto” came next and was a dig at Tommy.

Judy’s great marine picture made the background, and on the shore little Mary Morrison bade little Jimmie Jones “Good-bye” with heartrending sobs.  But this Bobbie Shafto never went to sea.  As picture followed picture, he was shown pulling at a rowing machine, sailing toy ships in a tub, fishing in a pail, and digging for treasure in a tiny sand pile—­and after each funny scene, the curtain would drop, and tiny Mary Morrison would come to the front and wail: 

“Tommy Shafto’s gone to sea, Silver buckles on his knee, He’ll come back and marry me, Pretty Tommy Shafto!”

It brought down the house, but Tommy got very red and murmured in Bobbie’s ear that “They might think it was funny, but he didn’t,” which Bobbie Green did not understand in the least.

“That’s all,” and Launcelot gave a sigh of relief, as Mary and Jimmie made their bows amid uproarious applause.  He had been stage manager as well as actor, and he was tired.

“No, no,” whispered Judy, as she came on the stage dressed as a fishermaid, and dragging a great net behind her.  “No, no.  Dr. Grennell is going to read ‘Break, break, break.’  I sha’n’t need any change of scene.  Just leave the big picture, and put this net and the shells around, and smooth out that sand to look like the beach.”

She was making a rock out of two boxes covered with a gray mackintosh as she spoke.  “Now, if you could just whistle like the wind,” she said.  “Do you think you could, Launcelot?”

“I’ll try,” and he did whistle, so effectively, that he did not get his breath for five minutes.

Judy had read the poem one day when she was helping Anne to plan the pictures, and it had, like all songs of the sea, sung itself into her heart.

Again the big picture with its stretch of sea made the background, and Judy sat on the rock looking at it.  The plaid lining of her mackintosh showed, and the wind sounded wheezy, but the pathos in Judy’s face, the tragedy in her eyes as the third verse was read: