me dress Miss Monroe: put on her
slippers while I lace her gown; run and fetch more jewels,--more
still,--she can carry off any number; not any rouge, Helene,--she has
too much color now; pull the frock more off the shoulders,--it's a
pity to cover an inch of them; pile her hair higher,--here, take my
diamond tiara, child; hurry, Helene, fetch the silver cup and the
cake--no, they are on the stage; take her train, Helene. Miss
Hamilton, run and open the doors ahead of them, please. I won't go
down for this tableau. I'll put Miss Dalziel right, and then I'll slip
into the drawing-room, to be ready for the guests when they come in."

We hurried breathlessly through an interminable series of rooms and
corridors. I gave the signal to Mr. Beresford, who was nervously
waiting for it in the wings, and the curtain went up on Hynde Horn
disguised as the auld beggar man at the king's gate. Mr. Beresford was
reading the ballad, and we took up the tableaux at the point where
Hynde Horn has come from a far countrie to see why the diamonds in the
ring given him by his own true love have grown pale and wan. He hears
that the king's daughter Jean has been married to a knight these nine
days past.

"But unto him a wife the bride winna be,
For love of Hynde Horn, far over the sea."

He therefore borrows the old beggar's garments and hobbles to the
king's palace, where he petitions the porter for a cup of wine and a
bit of cake to be handed him by the fair bride herself.

"'Good porter, I pray, for Saints Peter and Paul,
And for sake of the Saviour who died for us all,
For one cup of wine, and one bit of bread,
To an auld man with travel and hunger bestead.

"'And ask the fair bride, for the sake of Hynde Horn,
To hand them to me so sadly forlorn.'
Then the porter for pity the message convey'd,
And told the fair bride all the beggar man said."

The curtain went up again. The porter, moved to pity, has gone to give
the message to his lady. Hynde Horn is watching the staircase at the
rear of the stage, his heart in his eyes. The tapestries that hide it
are drawn, and there stands the king's daughter, who tripped down the
stair,

"And in her fair hands did lovingly bear
A cup of red wine, and a farle of cake,
To give the old man for loved Hynde Horn's sake."

The hero of the ballad, who had not seen his true love for seven long
years, could not have been more amazed at the chan