dinner-table the whole year round. The snow, confound it! prevented our
taking the hounds out for the first few days; but we were not bored as
one might have expected, and our misery was the girls' delight, who were
fervently hoping that the ice might come thick enough for them to skate.
Cecil was invaluable in a country-house; her resources were as unlimited
as Houdin's inexhaustible bottle. She played in French vaudevilles and
Sheridan Knowles's comedies, acted charades, planned tableaux vivants,
sang gay wild chansons peculiar to herself, that made the Screechington
bravuras and themes more insupportable than ever; and, what was more,
managed to infuse into everybody else some of her own energy and spirit.
She made every one do as she liked; but she tyrannised over us so
charmingly that we never chafed at the bit; and to the other girls she
was so good-natured in giving them the roles they liked, in praising,
and in aiding them, that it was difficult for feminine malice, though
its limits are boundless, to find fault with her. Vivian, though he did
not relax his criticism of her, was agreeable to her, as he had been in
Canada, and as he is always to women when he is not too lazy. He
consented to stand for Rienzi in a tableau, though he hates doing all
those things, and played in the Proverbs with such a flashing fire of
wit in answer to Cecil that we told him he beat Mathews.

"I'm inspired," he said, with a laughing bend of his head to Cecil, when
somebody complimented him.

She gave an impatient movement--she was accustomed to have such things
whispered in earnest, not in jest. She laughed, however. "Are you
inspired, then, to take _Huon's_ part? All the characters are cast but
that."

"I'm afraid I can't play well enough."

"Nonsense. You cannot think that. Say you would rather not at once."

Vivian stroked his mustaches thoughtfully. "Well, you see, it bores me
rather; and I'm not Christian enough to suffer ennui cheerfully to
please other people."

"Very well, then, I will give the part to Sir Horace," said Cecil,
looking through the window at the church spire, covered with the
confounded snow.

Vivian stroked away at his mustaches rather fiercely this time. "Cos!
he'll ruin the play. Dress him up as a lord in waiting, he'll be a
dainty lay figure, but for anything more he's not as fit as this setter!
Fancy that essenced, fair-haired young idiot taking _Huon_--his lisp
would be so effective!"

She loo