illustrations, and Miss Bond's
wonderful way of telling it, a new meaning crept into the well-known
lines, that thrilled every listener.

"Could you understand that, Teddy?" asked old Judge Fairfax, patting his
little grandson on the head.

"Course!" exclaimed seven-year-old Ted, who had followed his sister
Sally to every rehearsal.

"When you give money to people just to get rid of 'em, and because you
feel you'd ought to, it doesn't count for anything. But if you divide
something you've got, and would like to keep it all yourself, because
you love to, and are sorry for 'em, then it counts a pile. Sir Launfal
would have popped Jonesy into a 'sylum when he first started out to find
that gold cup, but when he came back he'd 'a' worked like a horse
getting up a benefit for him, and would have divided his own home with
him, if he hadn't been living at his grandmother's, and couldn't."

An amused smile went around that part of the audience which overheard
Ted's shrilly given explanation.

Pictures from the "Idylls of the King" followed in rapid succession,
and then came the prettiest of all, being the one in which Keith was
made a knight. Virginia as queen, her short black hair covered by a
powdered wig, and a long court-train sweeping behind her, stood touching
his shoulder with the jewel-hilted sword, as he knelt at her feet. Lloyd
and Sally Fairfax, Julia Ferris, and a dozen other pretty girls of the
neighbourhood, helped to fill out the gay court scene, while all the
boys that could be persuaded to take part were dressed up for heralds,
guardsmen, pages, and knights. That tableau had to be shown four times,
and then the audience kept on applauding as if they never intended
to stop.

The last one in this series of tableaux was the Hall of the Shields, as
Keith had described it to Jonesy. A whole row of dazzling shields hung
across the back of the stage, emblazoned with the arms of all the old
knights whose names have come down to us in song or story. Then for the
first time that evening Miss Bond came out on the stage where she could
be seen, and told the story of the death of King Arthur, and the passing
away of the order of the Round Table. She told it so well that little
Ted Fairfax listened with his mouth open, seeming to see the great arm
that rose out of the water to take back the king's sword into the sea,
from which it had been given him. An arm like a giant's, "clothed in
white samite, mystic, wonderful,