Queen. A back cloth went up, and it disclosed a double throne, and
as the young bride ascended the steps to take her place by the side of
her royal husband, a joyful chorus was sung, in which allusion was made
to a long reign and happy days.

Everyone was enchanted but Alice, who had wished to show how a man, in
the trouble and bitterness of life, must yearn for the consoling
sympathy of a woman, and how he may find the dove his heart is sighing
for in the lowliest bracken; and, having found her, and having
recognized that she is the one, he should place her in his bosom,
confident that her plumes are as fair and immaculate as those that
glitter in the sunlight about the steps and terraces of the palace.
Instead of this, she had seen a King who seemed to regard life as a
sensual gratification; and a beggar-maid, who looked upon her lover, not
timidly, as a new-born flower upon the sun, but as a clever huckstress
at a customer who had bought her goods at her valuing. But the audience
did not see below the surface, and, in answer to clapping of hands and
cries of _Encore_, the curtain was raised once more, and King Cophetua,
seated on his throne by the side of his beggar-maid, was shown to them
again.

The excitement did not begin to calm until the _tableaux vivants_ were
ready. For, notwithstanding the worldliness of the day, it was thought
that Heaven should not be forgotten. The convent being that of the Holy
Child, something illustrative of the birth of Christ naturally suggested
itself. No more touching or edifying subject than that of the
Annunciation could be found. Violet's thin, elegant face seemed
representative of an intelligent virginity, and in a long, white dress
she knelt at the _prie-dieu._ Olive, with a pair of wings obtained from
the local theatre, and her hair, blonde as an August harvesting, lying
along her back, took the part of the Angel. She wore a star on her
forehead, and after an interval that allowed the company to recover
their composure, and the carpenter to prepare the stage, the curtain was
again raised. This time the scene was a stable. At the back, in the
right-hand corner, there was a manger to which was attached a stuffed
donkey; Violet sat on a low stool and held the new-born Divinity in her
arms; May, who for the part of Joseph had been permitted to wear a false
beard, held a staff, and tried to assume the facial expression of a man
who had just been blessed with a son. In the foregr