ed with the
faculty for "getting up things". They are dauntless people, filled with
the power of driving lesser and deeper reluctant spirits before them;
remorseless to the timid, carneying to the stubborn.

Of such was Mrs. Carteret, with powers matured in hill-stations in
India, mellowed by much voyaging in P. and O. steamers. Not even an
environment as unpromising as that of Enniscar in its winter torpor had
power to dismay her. A public whose artistic tastes had hitherto been
nourished upon travelling circuses, Nationalist meetings, and missionary
magic lanterns in the Wesleyan schoolhouse, was, she argued, practically
virgin soil, and would ecstatically respond to any form of cultivation.

"I know there's not much talent to be had," she said combatively to her
husband, "but we'll just black our faces, and call ourselves the Green
Coons or something, and it will be all right!"

"Dashed if I'll black my face again," said Captain Carteret; "I call it
rot trying to get up anything here. There's no one to do anything."

"Well, there's ourselves and little Taylour" ("little Taylour," it may
be explained, was Captain Carteret's subaltern), "that's two banjoes and
a bones anyhow; and Freddy Alexander, and there's your dear friend Fanny
Fitz--she'll be home in a few days, and these two big Hamilton girls--"

"Oh, Lord!" ejaculated Captain Carteret.

"Oh, yes!" continued Mrs. Carteret, unheedingly, "and there's Mr.
Gunning; he'll come if Fanny Fitz does."

"He'll not be much advantage when he does come," said Captain Carteret
spitefully.

"Oh, he sings," said Mrs. Carteret, arranging her neat small fringe at
the glass--"rather a good voice. You needn't be afraid, my dear, I'll
arrange that the fascinating Fanny shall sit next you!"

Upon this somewhat unstable basis the formation of the troupe of Green
Coons was undertaken. Mrs. Carteret took off her coat to the work, or
rather, to be accurate, she put on a fur-lined one, and attended a
Nationalist meeting in the Town Hall to judge for herself how the voices
carried. She returned rejoicing--she had sat at the back of the hall,
and had not lost a syllable of the oratory, even during sundry heated
episodes, discreetly summarised by the local paper as "interruption".
The Town Hall was chartered, superficially cleansed, and in the space of
a week the posters had gone forth.

By what means it was accomplished that Rupert Gunning should attend the
first rehearsal he did