ning an old song.
In a short soliloquy about Sam, her boy, who wanted to enlist;
Dolly, her discontented little daughter, who longed for city ease and
pleasures; and poor 'Elizy', who had married badly, and came home to
die, bequeathing her baby to her mother, lest its bad father should
claim it, the little story was very simply opened, and made effective
by the real boiling of the kettle on the crane, the ticking of a tall
clock, and the appearance of a pair of blue worsted shoes which
waved fitfully in the air to the soft babble of a baby's voice. Those
shapeless little shoes won the first applause; and Mr Laurie, forgetting
elegance in satisfaction, whispered to his coadjutor:

'I thought the baby would fetch them!'

'If the dear thing won't squall in the wrong place, we are saved. But
it is risky. Be ready to catch it if all Meg's cuddlings prove in vain,'
answered Mrs Jo, adding, with a clutch at Mr Laurie's arm as a haggard
face appeared at the window:

'Here's Demi! I hope no one will recognize him when he comes on as the
son. I'll never forgive you for not doing the villain yourself.'

'Can't run the thing and act too. He's capitally made up, and likes a
bit of melodrama.'

'This scene ought to have come later; but I wanted to show that the
mother was the heroine as soon as possible. I'm tired of love-sick girls
and runaway wives. We'll prove that there's romance in old women also.
Now he's coming!'

And in slouched a degraded-looking man, shabby, unshaven, and evil-eyed,
trying to assume a masterful air as he dismayed the tranquil old woman
by demanding his child. A powerful scene followed; and Mrs Meg surprised
even those who knew her best by the homely dignity with which she at
first met the man she dreaded; then, as he brutally pressed his claim,
she pleaded with trembling voice and hands to keep the little creature
she had promised the dying mother to protect; and when he turned to
take it by force, quite a thrill went through the house as the old woman
sprung to snatch it from the cradle, and holding it close, defied him in
God's name to tear it from that sacred refuge. It was really well done;
and the round of applause that greeted the fine tableau of the indignant
old woman, the rosy, blinking baby clinging to her neck, and the daunted
man who dared not execute his evil purpose with such a defender for
helpless innocence, told the excited authors that their first scene was
a hit.

The second was