entre of the
first row) as she descended from the platform. She had not the hardihood
to glance toward the great man until the indistinct stockman had had his
wish, and Mrs. Clarkson, in her fine new raiment, had both sung and
acted a coy ditty of the previous decade, wherein every line began with
the word "somebody." It was an immediate success; the obstreperous
stockman led the encore; but Miss Bouverie, who duly accompanied,
extracted solace from the depressed attitude in which Sir Julian Crum
sat looking down his nose.

The township boasted its score of dwellings, but few of them showed a
light that evening; not less than ninety of the round hundred of
inhabitants clapped their hands and mopped their foreheads in Gulland's
new store. It might have been run up for its present purpose. There was
an entrance at one end for the performers, and that on the platform
level, since the ground sloped a little; at the other end was the only
other entrance, by which the audience were admitted. A makeshift lobby
had been arranged behind the platform, and thither Mrs. Clarkson retired
to await her earlier encores; when the compliment became a recognized
matter of course, she abandoned the mere form of a momentary retirement,
and stood patiently smiling in the satin ball-dress brought from
Melbourne for the nonce. And for the brief intervals between her efforts
she descended to a throne specially reserved on the great musician's
right.

The other performers did not dim her brilliance by reason of their own.
There was her own dear husband, whose serious recitation was the one
entertaining number. There was a Rabbit Inspector who rapped out "The
Scout" in a defiant barytone, and a publican whose somewhat uneven tenor
was shaken to its depths by the simple pathos of "When Sparrows Build."
Mrs. Clarkson could afford to encourage such tyros with marked applause.
The only danger was that Sir Julian might think she really admired their
untutored attempts.

"One must do it," she therefore took occasion to explain as she clapped.
"They are so nervous. The hard thing is to put oneself in their place;
it's nothing to me to sing a song, Sir Julian."

"So I can see, madam," said he.

At the extreme end of the same row Miss Bouverie passed her unemployed
moments between Mr. Radford and the wall, and was not easy until she had
signalled to little Mr. Hack to occupy the seat behind her. With the two
together she felt comparatively comfortab