w," changing from speaking voice to the sung chorus with a composure
that was really shameless, the critics out in the hall received that
insulting shock which novelty inflicts upon the provincial, which is
the childish, mind. They revenged themselves in their own way, mouthing
and attitudinizing, caricaturing every pose which Miss Henrietta had
been taught, by the instructor of Delsarte at Miss Jessup's, was grace.
They were caught in the midst of their saturnalia of ridicule by Kate,
who promptly exploded at their uncouth, dumb merriment.

"Aunt Anne wants you, Sissy," she said when she got her breath.

In an instant Sissy was sobered. It wasn't possible that she was to be
sent to bed before supper! To be a waiter was the height of happiness
for Sissy.

"It's because of the Versiye fotoy," giggled Split, as she ran off to
the dining-room.

"It isn't, is it?" whispered Sissy to Kate. And Kate shook her head
reassuringly, and waved her in. She couldn't answer audibly, for Dr.
Murchison was tuning up his sweet old violin, while Maude Bryne-Stivers
offered to accompany him on the piano.

But Murchison knew too much of the manners and methods of Jessup's
Seminary, as revealed by its showiest pupil.

"Thank you, thank you, Miss Maude, but this is a very old-fashioned and
a very simple entertainment I'm going to give. Just the things that I
play to myself when I'm weary of listening to humanity tell of its ills
and aches--the egotist! Then I look down into the beautifully clean
inside of my fiddle, its good old mechanism without a flaw, and listen
to the things it has to tell.... Thank you, just the same, Miss Maude;
this is not a theme worthy of your brilliant rendition, but, as I said,
a simple, old-fashioned playing of the fiddle. I'll supply the
old-fashioned part, and Sissy here can do the simple accompaniment, if
she will."

If she would! Sissy was so gaspingly happy and proud that she forgot
even to pretend that she wasn't. Seating herself, she let her trembling
fingers sink into the opening chord, while the old doctor's bow sought
the strains of "Kathleen Mavourneen," of "Annie Laurie," the "Blue Bells
of Scotland," and "Rose Marie."

The unspoken sympathy that existed between these two flowed now from the
bow to Sissy's fingers, and made a harmony as pretty as was the sight of
the old man and the happy child looking up at him. Sissy Madigan was
conscious that the doctor knew her--almost; that, nevertheless,