bsequies.

It was a clear winter's evening when they set out, a rosy-cheeked,
chattering, skipping party. Mr. Vergoe, wrapped in a muffler almost as
wide as a curtain, walked in the middle. Jenny held his hand. Edie
jigged on the inside, and Alfie, to whom had been intrusted the great
responsibility of the tickets, walked along the extreme edge of the
curb, occasionally jolting down with excitement into the frozen gutter.
They hurried along the wide raised pavement that led up to the theater.
They hurried past the golden windows of shops still gay with the
aftermath of Christmas. They hurried faster and faster till presently
the great front of the theater appeared in sight, when they all huddled
together for a wild dash across the crowded thoroughfare. Ragged boys
accosted them, trying to sell old programmes. Knowing men inquired if
they wanted the shortest way to the pit.

"No, thank you," said Mr. Vergoe proudly. "We have seats in the dress
circle."

The knowing men looked very respectful and moved aside from the welded
plutocracy of Edie, Alfie, Jenny and Mr. Vergoe. Fat women with baskets
of fat oranges tried to tempt them by offering three at once, but Mr.
Vergoe declined. Oranges would not be polite in the dress circle.

In the vestibule Alfie was commanded to produce the tickets. There was a
terrible moment of suspense while Alfie, nearly as crimson as the plush
all around him, dug down into one pocket after another. Were the tickets
lost? Edie and Jenny looked daggers. No; there they were: Row A, numbers
7, 8, 9, and 10. "Upstairs, please," said a magnificent gentleman in
black and gold. "This way, please," said a fuzzy-haired attendant. The
children walked over the thick carpet in awed silence. A glass door
swung open. They were in the auditorium of the Grand Theater, Islington,
in the very front row, by all that was fortunate; and, having bestowed
their hats and coats beneath the elegant and comfortable tip-up chairs,
they hung over the red-plush ledge of the circle and gazed down into
what seemed the whole of the population of London. The orchestra had not
yet come in. Down in the pit the people were laughing and talking. Up in
the gallery they were laughing and talking. Babies were crying; mothers
were comforting them. Everybody down below seemed to be eating oranges
or buns or chocolate. Alfie let his programme flutter down, and Jenny
nearly burst into tears because she thought they would all be turned o