take the opposite part in the tableau,
inasmuch as the hero bears his name; but he positively declined to
play Lord Ronald Macdonald, and said it was altogether too personal.

Mr. Anstruther was rather disagreeable at the beginning, and upbraided
Miss Dalziel for offering to be the king's daughter Jean to Mr.
Macdonald's Hynde Horn, when she knew very well he wanted her for
Ladye Jeanie in Glenlogie. (She had meantime confided to me that
nothing could induce her to appear in Glenlogie; it was far too
personal.)

Mr. Macdonald offended Francesca by sending her his cast-off gown and
begging her to be Sir Patrick Spens; and she was still more gloomy (so
I imagined) because he had not proffered his six feet of manly beauty
for the part of the captain in Mary Ambree, when the only other person
to take it was Jamie's tutor. He is an Oxford man and a delightful
person, but very bow-legged; added to that, by the time the rehearsals
had ended she had been obliged to beg him to love some one more worthy
than herself, and did not wish to appear in the same tableau with him,
feeling that it was much too personal.

When the eventful hour came, yesterday, Willie and I were the only
actors really willing to take lovers' parts, save Jamie and Ralph, who
were but too anxious to play all the characters, whatever their age,
sex, color, or relations. But the guests knew nothing of these trivial
disagreements, and at ten o'clock last night it would have been
difficult to match Rowardennan Castle for a scene of beauty and
revelry. Everything went merrily till we came to Hynde Horn, the
concluding tableau, and the most effective and elaborate one on the
programme. At the very last moment, when the opening scene was nearly
ready, Jean Dalziel fell down a secret staircase that led from the
tapestry chamber into Lady Ardmore's boudoir, where the rest of us
were dressing. It was a short flight of steps, but, as she held a
candle and was carrying her costume, she fell awkwardly, spraining her
wrist and ankle. Finding that she was not maimed for life, Lady
Ardmore turned with comical and unsympathetic haste to Francesca, so
completely do amateur theatricals dry the milk of kindness in the
human breast.

"Put on these clothes at once," she said imperiously, knowing nothing
of the volcanoes beneath the surface. "Hynde Horn is already on the
stage, and somebody must be Jean. Take care of Miss Dalziel, girls,
and ring for more maids. Helene, help