Book from its hiding-place, where she had buried it many weeks
ago in disgust. Now it comes into its own. She settles down with it in
her favourite chair. . . .)

MELISANDE (reading). To make Bread-Sauce. . . . Take an onion, peel and
quarter it, and simmer it in milk. . . .

(But you know how the romantic passage goes. We have her with it,
curled up in the chair, this adorable child, this funny foolish little
girl.)

THE STEPMOTHER

A PLAY IN ONE ACT

CHARACTERS

SIR JOHN PEMBURY, M.P.
LADY PEMBURY.
PERKINS.
THE STRANGER.

* * * * *

The first performance of this play was given at the Alhambra Theatre
on November 16, 1920, with the following cast:

Sir John Pembury--GILBERT HARE.
Lady Pembury--WINIFRED EMERY.
Perkins--C.M. LOWNE.
The Stranger--GERALD DU MAURIER.

THE STEPMOTHER

(A summer morning. The sunniest and perhaps the pleasantest room in
the London house of SIR JOHN PEMBURY, M.P. For this reason LADY
PEMBURY uses it a good deal, although it is not officially hers. It is
plainly furnished, and probably set out to be a sort of waiting-room
for SIR JOHN'S many callers, but LADY PEMBURY has left her mark upon
it.)

(PERKINS, the butler, inclining to stoutness, but not yet past his
prime, leads the may in, followed by THE STRANGER, PERKINS has already
placed him as "one of the lower classes," but the intelligent person
in the pit perceives that he is something better than that, though
whether he is in the process of falling from a higher estate, or of
rising to it, is not so clear. He is thirty odd, shabbily dressed (but
then, so are most of us nowadays), and ill at ease; not because he is
shabby, but because he is ashamed of himself. To make up for this, he
adopts a blustering manner, as if to persuade himself that he is a
fine fellow after all. There is a touch of commonness about his voice,
but he is not uneducated.)

PERKINS. I'll tell Sir John you're here, but I don't say he'll see
you, mind.

STRANGER. Don't you worry about that. He'll see me right enough.

PERKINS. He's busy just now. Well---- (He looks at THE STRANGER
doubtfully.)

STRANGER (bitterly). I suppose you think I've got no business in a
gentleman's house. Is that it?

PERKINS. Well, I didn't say so, did I? Maybe you're a constituent?
Being in the 'Ouse of Commons, we get some pretty queer ones at times.
All sorts, as you might say. . . . P'raps you're a deputation?

ST