aricatured
in the roseate environs of Castle Bunthorne. A number of people present
had never been in a theatre, either for lack of opportunity or from a
moral objection to theatres. Many others, who seldom missed a melodrama
at the Hanbridge Theatre Royal, avoided operas by virtue of the
infallible instinct which caused them to recoil from anything exotic
enough to disturb the calm of their lifelong mental lethargy. As for the
minority which was accustomed to opera, including the still smaller
minority which had seen _Patience_ itself, it assumed the right that
evening critically to examine the convention anew, to reconsider it
unintimidated by the crushing prestige of the Savoy or of D'Oyly Carte's
No. 1 Touring Company. And for the most part it found in the convention
small basis of common sense.

Then Patience appeared on the eminence. She was a dairymaid, and she
could not understand the philosophy prevalent in the roseate environs of
Castle Bunthorne. The audience hailed her with joy and relief. The
dairymaid and her costume were pretty in a familiar way which it could
appreciate. She was extremely young, adorably impudent, airy, tripping,
and supple as a circus-rider. She had marvellous confidence. 'We are
friends, are we not, you and I?' her gestures seemed to say to the
audience. And with the utmost complacency she gazed at herself in the
eyes of the audience as in a mirror. Her opening song renewed the
triumph of the overture. It was recognisably a ballad, and depended on
nothing external for its effectiveness. It gave the bewildered listeners
something to take hold of, and in return for this gift they acclaimed
and continued to acclaim. Milly glanced coolly at the conductor, who
winked back his permission, and the next moment the Bursley Operatic
Society tasted the delight of its first encore. The pert fascinations of
the heroine, the bravery of the Colonel and his guards, the clowning of
Bunthorne, combined with the continuous seduction of the music and the
scene, very quickly induced the audience to accept without reserve this
amazing intrigue of logical absurdities which was being unrolled before
it. The opera ceased to appear preposterous; the convention had won,
and the audience had lost. Small slips in delivery were unnoticed, big
ones condoned, and nervousness encouraged to depart. The performance
became a homogeneous whole, in which the excellence of the best far more
than atoned for the clumsy mediocr