ught he was serious.

The song of which he was especially fond was one called "He never cares
to wander from his own Fireside," which was especially appropriate in
coming from a man who had visited almost every spot in the three
Americas, except his home, in ten years. MacWilliams always ended the
evening's entertainment with this chorus, no matter how many times it
had been sung previously, and seemed to regard it with much the same
veneration that the true Briton feels for his national anthem.

The words of the chorus were:

"He never cares to wander from his own fireside,
He never cares to wander or to roam.
With his babies on his knee,
He's as happy as can be,
For there's no place like Home, Sweet Home."

MacWilliams loved accidentals, and what he called "barber-shop chords."
He used a beautiful accidental at the word "be," of which he was very
fond, and he used to hang on that note for a long time, so that those
in the extreme rear of the hall, as he was wont to explain, should get
the full benefit of it. And it was his custom to emphasize "for" in
the last line by speaking instead of singing it, and then coming to a
full stop before dashing on again with the excellent truth that "there
is NO place like Home, Sweet Home."

The men at the mines used to laugh at him and his song at first, but
they saw that it was not to be so laughed away, and that he regarded it
with some peculiar sentiment. So they suffered him to sing it in peace.

MacWilliams went through his repertoire to the unconcealed amusement of
young Langham and Hope. When he had finished he asked Hope if she knew
a comic song of which he had only heard by reputation. One of the men
at the mines had gained a certain celebrity by claiming to have heard
it in the States, but as he gave a completely new set of words to the
tune of the "Wearing of the Green" as the true version, his veracity
was doubted. Hope said she knew it, of course, and they all went into
the drawing-room, where the men grouped themselves about the piano. It
was a night they remembered long afterward. Hope sat at the piano
protesting and laughing, but singing the songs of which the new-comers
had become so weary, but which the three men heard open-eyed, and
hailed with shouts of pleasure. The others enjoyed them and their
delight, as though they were people in a play expressing themselves in
this extravagant manner for their entertainment, until t