course, and with artful ways, but untidy a little
and not very well educated. At the first interval, when the lights were
up and the band was playing and the people walking, Martin whispered:

"Do you like it, Maggie?"

"I love it," she answered.

And then they just sat there, without another word between them,
pressed close together.

A little song ran through the play--one of Burns's most famous songs,
although Maggie, who had never read anything, did not know that. The
verses were:

O my luve's like a red, red rose That's newly sprung in June: O my
luve's like the melodie That's sweetly played in tune!

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I: And I will luve
thee still, my dear, Till a' the seas gang dry:

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi' the sun; I
will luve thee still, my dear, While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve, And fare thee weel a while! And I
will come again, my Luve, Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

First the handsome soldier sang this to the Charity girl, and then,
because it was a sentimental tune, it was always turning up through the
play, and if one of the characters were not singing it the orchestra
was quietly playing it. Maggie loved it; she was not sentimental but
she was simple, and the tune seemed at once to belong to herself and to
Martin by natural right.

As the story developed it became more unreal and Maggie's unerring
knowledge of the difference between sense and nonsense refused to
credit the tall handsome villainness who confronted the Charity girl at
the ball. The Charity girl had no right to be at the ball and people
stood about in unnatural groups and pretended not to listen to the loud
development of the plot and no one seemed to use any of their
faculties. Then at the end, when the middle-aged gentleman nobly
surrendered his Charity girl to the handsome soldier, the little tune
came back again and all was well.

They came out of the theatre into lights and shadows and mists cabs and
omnibuses and crowds of people ... Maggie clung to Martin's arm. It
seemed to her, dazzled for an instant, that a great are of white
piercing light cut the black street and that in the centre of this arc
a tree, painted green, stood, and round the tree figures, dark shapes,
and odd shadows danced. She shaded her eyes with her hand. The long
shining line of Shaftesbury Avenue ran out, from her feet, into thick
clusters of