onds!" she chuckled.
"I knew they'd come! It's the beautiful Tappingham Marsh with his
fiddle, and young Jeff Bareaud with his flute, and 'Gene Madrillon
and little Frank Chenowith and thin Will Cummings to sing. Hark to the
rascals!"

It is perfectly truthful to say that the violin and flute executed the
prelude, and then the trio sounded full on the evening air, the more
effective chords obligingly drawn out as long as the breath in the
singers could hold them, in order to allow the two fair auditors
complete benefit of the harmony. They sang "The Harp that Once Thro'
Tara's Halls," and followed it with "Long, Long Ago."

"That," Mrs. Tanberry whispered, between stifled gusts of almost
uncontrollable laughter, "is meant for just me!"

"Tell me the tales that to me were so dear," entreated the trio.

"I told 'em plenty!" gurgled the enlivening widow. "And I expect between
us we can get up some more." "Now you are come my grief is removed,"
they sang.

"They mean your father is on his way to St. Louis," remarked Mrs.
Tanberry.

"Let me forget that so long you have roved, Let me believe that you love
as you loved, Long, long ago, long ago."

"Applaud, applaud!" whispered Mrs. Tanberry, encouraging the minstrels
by a hearty clapping of hands.

Hereupon dissension arose among the quintet, evidently a dispute in
regard to their next selection; one of the gentlemen appearing more
than merely to suggest a solo by himself, while the others too frankly
expressed adverse opinions upon the value of the offering. The argument
became heated, and in spite of many a "Sh!" and "Not so loud!" the
ill-suppressed voice of the intending soloist, Mr. Chenoweth, could be
heard vehemently to exclaim: "I will! I learned it especially for this
occasion. I will sing it!"

His determination, patently, was not to be balked without physical
encounter, consequently he was permitted to advance some paces from the
lilac bushes, where he delivered himself, in an earnest and plaintive
tenor, of the following morbid instructions, to which the violin played
an obligato in tremulo, so execrable, and so excruciatingly discordant,
that Mr. Chenoweth's subsequent charge that it was done with a
deliberately evil intention could never be successfully opposed:

"Go! Forget me!
Why should Sorrow
O'er that brow a shadow fling?
Go! Forget me, and, to-morrow,
Brightly smile and sweetly sing!

"Smile! tho' I may not be