n A flat major: Chopin'--what rot! As if working
people cared about Chopin! Miss Elinor McQuinch is a fool, I see. 'Song:
The Valley: Gounod.' Of course: I knew you would try that. Oho! Here's
something sensible at last. 'Nigger melody. Uncle Ned. Mr. Marmaduke
Lind, accompanied by himself on the banjo.'

Dum, drum. Dum, drum. Dum, drum. Dum--
'And there was an ole nigga; and his name was Uncle Ned;
An' him dead long ago, long ago.
An' he had no hair on the top of his head
In the place where the wool ought to grow,'

Mr. Marmaduke Lind will get a double _encore_; and no one will take the
least notice of you or the others. 'Recitation. The Faithful Soul.
Adelaide Proctor. Mrs. Leith Fairfax.' Well, this certainly is a blessed
attempt to amuse Wandsworth. _Another_ reading by the Rev.----"

Here Conolly, who had been putting on his overcoat, picked the program
deftly from his sister's fingers, and left the room. She, after damning
him very heartily, returned to the glass, and continued dressing,
taking her tea at intervals until she was ready to go out, when she sent
for a cab, and bade the driver convey her to the Bijou Theatre, Soho.

Conolly, on arriving at the Wandsworth Town Hall, was directed to a
committee room, which served as green-room on this occasion. He was
greeted by a clean shaven young clergyman who protested that he was glad
to see him there, but did not offer his hand. Conolly thanked him
briefly, and went without further ceremony to the table, and was about
to place his hat and overcoat on a heap of similar garments, when,
observing that there were some hooks along the wall, he immediately
crossed over and hung up his things on them, thereby producing an
underbred effect of being more prudent and observant than the rest. Then
he looked at his program, and calculated how soon his turn to sing would
come. Then he unrolled his music, and placed two copies of Le Vallon
ready to his hand upon the table. Having made these arrangements with a
self-possession that quite disconcerted the clergyman, he turned to
examine the rest of the company.

His first glance was arrested by the beauty of a young lady with light
brown hair and gentle grey eyes, who sat near the fire. Beside her, on a
lower chair, was a small, lean, and very restless young woman with keen
dark eyes staring defiantly from a worn face. These two were attended by
a jovial young gentleman with curly auburn hair, who was twanging