erted themselves in advance to
impress upon the public mind that the entertainment would be nothing if
not fashionable and brilliant; and they had succeeded. There was not a
single young man, and scarcely an old one, but wore evening-dress, and
the frocks of the women made a garden of radiant blossoms. Supreme among
the eminent dandies who acted as stewards in that part of the house was
Harry Burgess, straight out of Conduit Street, W., with a mien plainly
indicating that every reserved seat had been sold two days before. From
the second seats the sterling middle classes, half envy and half
disdain, examined the glittering ostentation in front of them; they had
no illusions concerning it; their knowledge of financial realities was
exact. Up in the gloom of the balcony the crowded faces of the
unimportant and the obscure rose tier above tier to the organ-loft. Here
was Florence Gardner, come incognito to deride; here was Fred Ryley,
thief of an evening's time; and here were sundry dressmakers who
experienced the thrill of the creative artist as they gazed at their
confections below.

The entire audience was nervous, critical, and excited: partly because
nearly every unit of it boasted a relative or an intimate friend in the
Society, and partly because, as an entity representing the town, it had
the trepidations natural to a mother who is about to hear her child say
a piece at a party. It hoped, but it feared. If any outsider had
remarked that the youthful Bursley Operatic Society could not expect
even to approach the achievements of its remarkable elder sister at
Hanbridge, the audience would have chafed under that invidious
suggestion. Nevertheless it could not believe that its native talent
would be really worth hearing. And yet rumours of a surprising
excellence were afloat. The excitement was intensified by the tuning of
instruments in the orchestra, by certain preliminary experiments of a
too anxious gasman, and most of all by a delay in beginning.

At length the Mayor entered, alone; the interesting absence of the
Mayoress had some connection with a silver cradle that day ordered from
Birmingham as a civic gift.

'Well, Burgess,' the Mayor whispered benevolently, 'what sort of a show
are we to have?'

'You will see, Mr. Mayor,' said Harry, whose confident smile expressed
the spirit of the Society.

Then the conductor--the man to whom twenty instrumentalists and thirty
singers looked for guidance, help, encour