At the sight of them, Mrs. Carew, still vigorously clapping, leaned over to say to Mrs. Burgoyne: 

“Look at Clara White!  And we were wondering why they didn’t come in!  Wouldn’t she make you tired!”

“You might kiss her hand, when you go up to get your prize, Mrs. Burgoyne,” suggested Barry, and a general giggle went the rounds.

“If I get a prize,” said Sidney, in alarm, “you’ve got to go up, I couldn’t!”

“We’ll see—­” Barry began, his voice drowned by the opening crash of the band.

There followed what the three papers of Santa Paloma were unanimous the next day in describing as the most brilliant and enjoyable concert ever given in Santa Paloma.  It was received with immense enthusiasm, entirely unaffected by the fact that everyone present had heard Miss Emelie Jeanne Foster sing “Twickenham Ferry” before, with “Dawn” as an encore, and was familiar also with the selections of the Stringed Instrument Club, and had listened to young Doctor Perry’s impassioned tenor many times.  As for George O’Connor, with his irresistible laughing song, and the song about the train that went to Morro to-day, he was more popular every time he appeared, and was greeted now by mad applause, and shouts of “There’s George!” and “Hello, George!”

And the Home Boys’ Quartette from Emville was quite new, and various solo singers and a “lady elocutionist” from San Francisco were heard for the first time.  The latter, who was on the program merely for a “Recitation—­Selected,” was so successful with “Pauline Pavlovna,” and “Seein’ Things at Night” that it was nearly ten o’clock before the Governor was introduced.

However, he was at last duly presented to the applauding hundreds, and came forward to the footlights to address them, and made everyone laugh and feel friendly by saying immediately that he knew they hadn’t come out that evening to hear an old man make a long speech.

He said he didn’t believe in speechmaking much, he believed in doing things; there were always a lot of people to stand around and make speeches, like himself—­and there was more laughter.

He said that he knew the business of the evening was the giving out of these prizes here—­he didn’t know what was in these boxes—­he indicated the daintily wrapped and tied packages that stood on the little table in the middle of the stage—­but he thought every lady in the hall would know before she went home, and perhaps some one of them would tell him—­and there was more laughter.  He said he hoped that there was something mighty nice in the largest box, because he understood that it was to go to a fairy-godmother; he didn’t know whether the good people in the hall believed in fairies or not, but he knew that some of the children in Old Paloma did, and he had seen and heard enough that day to make him believe in ’em too!  He’d heard of a fairy years ago who made a coach-and-four out of a pumpkin, but he didn’t think that was any harder than to make a coach-and-six out of a hay-wagon, and put twenty Cinderellas into it instead of one.  He said it gave him great pride and pleasure to announce that the first prize for to-day’s beautiful contest had been unanimously awarded to—­