g heart.

"Mrs. Clarkson," said Stingaree, "you have been singing too much, and
the quality of your song has not been equal to the quantity."

It sounded a brutal speech enough; and to do justice to a portion of the
audience not hitherto remarkable for its spirit, the ungallant criticism
was audibly resented in the back rows. The maudlin stockman had indeed
to be restrained by his neighbors from precipitating himself upon the
barrels of Stingaree. But the effect upon Mrs. Clarkson herself was
still more remarkable, and revealed a subtle kindness in the desperado's
cruelty. Her pale face flushed; her lack-lustre eyes blazed forth their
indignation; her very clay was on fire for all the room to see.

"I don't sing for criminals and cut-throats!" the indignant lady cried
out. She glanced at Sir Julian as one for whom she did sing. And Sir
Julian's eyes twinkled under the bushranger's guns.

"To be sure you don't," said Stingaree, with as much sweetness as his
character would permit. "You sing for charity, and spend three times as
much as you are ever likely to make in arraying yourself for the
occasion. Well, we must put up with some song-bird without fine
feathers, for I mean to hear the programme out." His eyes ranged the
front rows till they fell on Hilda Bouverie in her corner. "You young
lady over there! You've been talking since I called for silence. You
deserve to pay a penalty; be good enough to step this way."

Hilda's excitement may be supposed; it made her scandalously radiant in
that company of humiliated men and women, but it did not rob her of her
resource. Removing her shawl with apparent haste, but with calculated
deliberation, she laid it in a bunch upon the seat which she had
occupied, and stepped forward with a courage that won a cheer from the
back rows. Stingaree stooped to hand her up to the platform; and his
warm grip told a tale. This was what he had come for, to make her sing,
to make her sing before Sir Julian Crum, to give her a start unique in
the history of the platform and the stage. Criminal, was he? Then the
dearest, kindest, most enchanting, most romantic criminal the world had
ever seen! But she must be worthy of his chivalry and her chance; and,
from the first, her artistic egoism insisted that she was.

Stingaree had picked up a programme, and dexterously mounted it between
hammer and cartridge of the revolver which he had momentarily
relinquished, much as a cornet-player mounts his