feared. We knew well that it was
not the hero who had done the murder. "Poor dear," as Amy would have
called him, he was quite incapable of doing anything requiring one-half
as much smartness. We knew that it was not he, poor innocent lamb! who
had betrayed the lady with the French accent; we had heard her on the
subject and had formed a very shrewd conjecture. But appearances,
we could not help admitting, were terribly to his disfavour. The
circumstantial evidence against him would have hanged an Archbishop.
Could she in face of it still retain her faith? There were moments when
my mother restrained with difficulty her desire to rise and explain.

Between the acts Barbara would whisper to her that she was not to mind,
because it was only a play, and that everything would be sure to come
right in the end.

"I know, my dear," my mother would answer, laughing, "it is very foolish
of me; I forget. Paul, when you see me getting excited, you must remind
me."

But of what use was I in such case! I, who only by holding on to the
arms of my seat could keep myself from swarming down on to the stage
to fling myself between this noble damsel and her persecutor--this
fair-haired, creamy angel in whose presence for the time being I had
forgotten even Barbara.

The end came at last. The uncle from Australia was not dead. The
villain--bungler as well as knave--had killed the wrong man, somebody of
no importance whatever. As a matter of fact, the comic man himself was
the uncle from Australia--had been so all along. My mother had had a
suspicion of this from the very first. She told us so three times, to
make up, I suppose, for not having mentioned it before. How we cheered
and laughed, in spite of the tears in our eyes.

By pure accident it happened to be the first night of the piece, and
the author, in response to much shouting and whistling, came before the
curtain. He was fat and looked commonplace; but I deemed him a genius,
and my mother said he had a good face, and waved her handkerchief
wildly; while my father shouted "Bravo!" long after everybody else had
finished; and people round about muttered "packed house," which I didn't
understand at the time, but came to later.

And stranger still, it happened to be before that very same curtain
that many years later I myself stepped forth to make my first bow as a
playwright. I saw the house but dimly, for on such occasion one's vision
is apt to be clouded. All that I saw clear