ointing to her
programme.

The major put on his glasses and read the line in the cast of
characters that her finger indicated.

Col. Webster Calhoun . . . . H. Hopkins Hargraves.

"It's our Mr. Hargraves," said Miss Lydia. "It must be his first
appearance in what he calls 'the legitimate.' I'm so glad for him."

Not until the second act did Col. Webster Calhoun appear upon the
stage. When he made his entry Major Talbot gave an audible sniff,
glared at him, and seemed to freeze solid. Miss Lydia uttered a
little, ambiguous squeak and crumpled her programme in her hand. For
Colonel Calhoun was made up as nearly resembling Major Talbot as one
pea does another. The long, thin white hair, curly at the ends, the
aristocratic beak of a nose, the crumpled, wide, ravelling shirt
front, the string tie, with the bow nearly under one ear, were almost
exactly duplicated. And then, to clinch the imitation, he wore the
twin to the major's supposed to be unparalleled coat. High-collared,
baggy, empire-waisted, ample-skirted, hanging a foot lower in front
than behind, the garment could have been designed from no other
pattern. From then on, the major and Miss Lydia sat bewitched, and
saw the counterfeit presentment of a haughty Talbot "dragged," as
the major afterward expressed it, "through the slanderous mire of a
corrupt stage."

Mr. Hargraves had used his opportunities well. He had caught the
major's little idiosyncrasies of speech, accent, and intonation
and his pompous courtliness to perfection--exaggerating all to the
purposes of the stage. When he performed that marvellous bow that the
major fondly imagined to be the pink of all salutations, the audience
sent forth a sudden round of hearty applause.

Miss Lydia sat immovable, not daring to glance toward her father.
Sometimes her hand next to him would be laid against her cheek, as if
to conceal the smile which, in spite of her disapproval, she could not
entirely suppress.

The culmination of Hargraves's audacious imitation took place in the
third act. The scene is where Colonel Calhoun entertains a few of the
neighbouring planters in his "den."

Standing at a table in the centre of the stage, with his friends
grouped about him, he delivers that inimitable, rambling, character
monologue so famous in "A Magnolia Flower," at the same time that he
deftly makes juleps for the party.

Major Talbot, sitting quietly, but white with indignation, heard
his best stories