rdian angel must have
betaken himself off in a huff.

"Will you keep close behind and see to my skirt?" answered my mother,
commencing preparations. If you will remember that these were the days
of crinolines, that the "knife-boards" of omnibuses were then approached
by a perpendicular ladder, the rungs two feet apart, you will understand
the necessity for such precaution.

Which of us was the most excited throughout that long ride it would be
difficult to say. Barbara, feeling keenly her responsibility as prompter
and leader of the dread enterprise, sat anxious, as she explained to us
afterwards, hoping there would be nothing shocking in the play, nothing
to belie its innocent title; pleased with her success so far, yet
still fearful of failure, doubtful till the last moment lest we should
suddenly repent, and stopping the 'bus, flee from the wrath to come.
My father was the youngest of us all. Compared with him I was sober and
contained. He fidgeted: people remarked upon it. He hummed. But for
the stern eye of a thin young man sitting next to him trying to read
a paper, I believe he would have broken out into song. Every minute he
would lean across to enquire of my mother: "How are you feeling--all
right?" To which my mother would reply with a nod and a smile, She sat
very silent herself, clasping and unclasping her hands. As for myself,
I remember feeling so sorry for the crowds that passed us on their way
home. It was sad to think of the long dull evening that lay before them.
I wondered how they could face it.

Our seats were in the front row of the upper circle. The lights were low
and the house only half full when we reached them.

"It seems very orderly and--and respectable," whispered my mother. There
seemed a touch of disappointment in her tone.

"We are rather early," replied Barbara; "it will be livelier when the
band comes in and they turn up the gas."

But even when this happened my mother was not content. "There is so
little room for the actors," she complained.

It was explained to her that the green curtain would go up, that the
stage lay behind.

So we waited, my mother sitting stiffly on the extreme edge of her
seat, holding me tightly by the hand; I believe with some vague idea of
flight, should out of that vault-scented gloom the devil suddenly appear
to claim us for his own. But before the curtain was quite up she had
forgotten him.

You poor folk that go to the theatre a dozen times a y