and they went back again into utter confusion.
They stopped singing and began to grumble.

"Queer arrangements, anyhow," said a surly-looking man in front. "Why
didn't they have a speaker ready to address this throng, instead of
keeping us waiting here with nothing to entertain us?"

"I know it," said Marion, briskly addressing herself to her party. "Dr.
Vincent has not used his accustomed foresight. He ought to have known
that the presidential party would be three hours late, and filled up the
programme with speeches, especially since there has been such a dearth
of speech-making during the past two weeks. We are really hungry for an
address! I don't know who would have undertaken the task, however,
unless they sent for Gabriel or some other celestial. I know _I_ have no
desire to listen to a common mortal."

Before them sat a lady absorbed in a book. During the singing she joined
heartily, and when Dr. Vincent came, on one of his numerous journeys to
try to encourage the crowd with the information that the party waited
for had not yet arrived, she looked and listened with the rest, but
always with her finger between the leaves, as if the place was too
interesting to be lost.

Eurie's curiosity rose to such a pitch that she leaned forward for a
peep at the title-page, and drew back suddenly. It was a copy of the
Teacher's Bible!

A silence fell upon the company near the front, broken suddenly by an
old lady who leaned lovingly toward her chubby-faced grandson, and said:

"Frankie, you must look in a few minutes and you will see the President
of the United States."

"That is good news, anyhow," spoke forth a rough-looking, good-natured
man near by, and the listeners, who were in that excited state of
weariness and waiting that they were ready to laugh or cry as the
slightest occasion offered, burst forth into roars of laughter, which
rang back among the crowds behind and enticed them to join, though I
suppose not twenty of the laughers knew what the joke was, if indeed
there _was_ one.

A sudden rush. Some one occupied the stand. A notice.

"A telegram!" said a ringing voice. "For Mrs. C.G. Hammond.
Marked--'Death!'"

A sympathetic murmur ran through the great company, as they moved and
wedged and fell back, and did almost impossible things, to make a road
out of that dense throng of humanity for the one to whom the president
had suddenly become an insignificance.

Just then came the "Wyoming Trio." Blessi