you expect in the realm of Magic?--the
scheme does not work out with any logical consistency. It is true
that the philanderer and the pilfering butler show little promise of
making anything out of their Second Chance; but, on the other hand,
the childless tippler seems to have gone reformation and recovered
his wife's regard; and if I rightly interpret certain delicate
indications, they propose to have a pearl of a daughter later on. Also
the dainty and supercilious _Lady Caroline_, who in the wood becomes
enamoured of the butler-turned-plutocrat (_cf. Titania_ and _Bottom_)
and subsequently returns to her sniffiness, cannot be said to have
lost much by failing to utilise her Second Chance.

However, one might never have troubled about Sir JAMES'S logic if he
had not declared his moral purpose in set terms. I suppose he had to
explain his title, which was sufficiently obscure. It comes, as Mr.
SOTHERN kindly informed us, from the lines:--

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves."

_Brutus_, in fact, is the famous general to whom certain things were
caviare. He is the typical man in the audience, to whom Sir JAMES
says: "You, too, Brutus; I'm talking at you."

[Illustration: IN AND OUT OF THE WOOD.

_Mr. Purdie_ MR. SAM SOTHERN.
_Mr. Coade_ MR. NORMAN FORBES.
_Mr. Dearth_ MR. GERALD DU MAURIER.]

Happily (for my taste, anyhow) the humour of the play dominates its
sentiment. And where the sentiment of the child _Margaret_ threatens
to overstrain itself we had always the healthy antidote of Mr. DU
MAURIER'S practical methods to correct its tendency to cloy. He was
extraordinarily good both as himself and, for a rare change, as
somebody quite different. Miss FAITH CELLI as his daughter--a sort of
_Peter Pan_ girl who does grow up, far too tall--was delightful in the
true BARRIE manner. It was a pity--but that was not her fault--that
she had to end her long and difficult scene on rather a false note.
I am almost certain that no child (outside a BARRIE play), who is
left alone in a Magic Wood, scared out of her life, would cry aloud,
"Daddy, daddy, I don't want to be a Might-have-been." The sentiment of
the words was, of course, part of the scheme, but it was not for her
to say them.

Mr. NORMAN FORBES, in the Wood, was an elderly piping faun and
performed with astonishing agility a sword-dance over a stick crossed
with his whistle. Elsewhere as _Mr. Coade_ he played very