ear May!'

'Well, Duke of St. James, what am I to do with this rebellious troop?'

'Let me be Cinderella!'

'It is astonishing,' said Miss Dacre, 'the difficulty which you
encounter in England, if you try to make people the least amusing or
vary the regular dull routine, which announces dancing as the beautiful
of diversions and cards as the sublime.'

'We are barbarians,' said the Duke. 'We were not,' said May Dacre. 'What
are _tableaux_, or acted charades, or romances, to masques, which were
the splendid and various amusement of our ancestors. Last Christmas we
performed "Comus" here with great effect; but then we had Arundel, and
he is an admirable actor.'

'Curse Arundel!' thought the Duke. 'I had forgotten him.'

'I do not wonder,' said Mrs. Dallington Vere, 'at people objecting to
act regular plays, for, independently of the objections, not that
I think anything of them myself, which are urged against "private
theatricals," the fact is, to get up a play is a tremendous business,
and one or two is your bound. But masques, where there is so little
to learn by rote, a great consideration, where music and song are so
exquisitely introduced, where there is such an admirable opportunity
for brilliant costume, and where the scene may be beautiful without
change--such an important point--I cannot help wondering that this
national diversion is not revived.'

'Suppose we were to act a romance without the costume?' said the Duke.
'Let us consider it a rehearsal. And perhaps the Misses Howard will have
no objection to sing?'

'It is difficult to find a suitable romance,' said Miss Dacre. 'All our
modern English ones are too full of fine poetry. We tried once an old
ballad, but it was too long. Last Christmas we got up a good many, and
Arundel, Isabella, and myself used to scribble some nonsense for the
occasion. But I am afraid they are all either burnt or taken away. I
will look in the music-case.'

She went to the music-case with the Duke and Mrs. Dallington.

'No,' she continued; 'not one, not a single one. But what are these?'
She looked at some lines written in pencil in a music-book. 'Oh! here is
something; too slight, but it will do. You see,' she continued, reading
it to the Duke, 'by the introduction of the same line in every verse,
describing the same action, a back-scene is, as it were, created, and
the story, if you can call it such, proceeds in front. Really, I think,
we might make something of this.'