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 protestations of
devotion, begged for his mistress's hand and kissed it with
great fervour; and appeared to be carrying on a lively suit to
the damsel. Now nothing could have been prettier than the
picture and the pantomime. Stuart kept his face away from the
audience; Wych Hazel was revealed, and in the coy, blushing
maidenly dignity and confusion which suited the character and
occasion, was a tableau worth looking at. Well looked at, and
in deep silence of the company; till suddenly the growling old
French father is heard coming back again. The peasant starts
to his feet, the girl sits down in terror.

'What shall I do?' he cries, and she echoes,--'What shall he
do? What shall he do?'

T