ce of the
evening at Overdene when she felt so inclined to say to him: "Tell me
just what you want me to do, and I will do it."

"Pauline will just love to go with you," said Mrs. Parker Bangs. "She
dotes on rural music."

"Rubbish, aunt!" said Miss Lister, who had slipped into an empty chair
near Myra. "I agree with Miss Champion about 'services of song,' and I
don't care for any music but the best."

Jane turned to her quickly, with a cordial smile and her most friendly
manner. "Ah, but you must come," she said. "We will be victimised
together. And perhaps Dal and Lawson will succeed in converting us to
the cult of the 'service of song.' And anyway it will be amusing to
have Dal explain it to us. He will need the courage of his convictions."

"Talking of something 'really exciting in the way of music,'" said
Pauline Lister, "we had it on board when we came over. There was a nice
friendly crowd on board the Arabic, and they arranged a concert for
half-past eight on the Thursday evening. We were about two hundred
miles off the coast of Ireland, and when we came up from dinner we had
run into a dense fog. At eight o'clock they started blowing the
fog-horn every half-minute, and while the fog-horn was sounding you
couldn't hear yourself speak. However, all the programmes were printed,
and it was our last night on board, so they concluded to have the
concert all the same. Down we all trooped into the saloon, and each
item of that programme was punctuated by the stentorian BOO of the
fog-horn every thirty seconds. You never heard anything so cute as the
way it came in, right on time. A man with a deep bass voice sang ROCKED
IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP, and each time he reached the refrain, 'And
calm and peaceful is my sle-eep,' BOO went the fog-horn, casting a
certain amount of doubt on our expectations of peaceful sleep that
night, anyway. Then a man with a sweet tenor sang OFT IN THE STILLY
NIGHT, and the fog-horn showed us just how oft, namely, every thirty
seconds. But the queerest effect of all was when a girl had to play a
piano-forte solo. It was something of Chopin's, full of runs and trills
and little silvery notes. She started all right; but when she was
half-way down the first page, BOO went the fog-horn, a longer blast
than usual. We saw her fingers flying, and the turning of the page, but
not a note could we hear; and when the old horn stopped and we could
hear the piano again, she had reached a place half-wa