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By Anna Fuller

Author of Pratt Portraits," "A Venetian June," etc.

́ES, my dear, I went to the Theetter myself once when I was quite a girl, younger'n you be, I guess. 'Twas Uncle Bijah Lane that took me, 'n' he was so upsot by their hevin' a fun'ral all acted out on the stage that he come home and told Ma 'twa'n't no fit place for young girls to go to, 'n' I ain't never ben inside a the etter sence. Doos seem good to see play-actin' agin after all these years, I declare it doos!" and Miss Becky took up her sewing which she had laid down in a moment of enthusiasm.

"If you liked it half as well as I like to do it, Miss Becky, you'd like it even better than you do now," replied Lady Macbeth, with a cheerful gusto some what at odds with her tragic character.

Nannie Ray, herself still very new to the delights of theater-going, had recently seen a great actress play Lady Macbeth, and, fired with the spirit of emulation, she had been enacting the sleep-walking scene for the benefit of her country neighbor. Miss Becky Crawlin lived only half a mile down the road from the old Ray homestead, where the family were in the habit of spending six months of the year. She and Nannie had always been great cronies, Miss Becky finding a perennial delight in "that child's goings on."

The "child" meanwhile had come to be sixteen years old, but no one would have given her credit for such dignity who could have seen the incongruous little figure perched upon the slippery haircloth sofa, twinkling with delight at Miss Becky's encomiums. She wore a voluminous nightgown, from under the hem of which a pink gingham ruffle insisted upon poking itself out; her long black hair hung over her shoulders in sufficiently tragic strands; her cheeks, liberally powdered with flour, gleamed treacherously pink through a chance break in their highly artificial pallor, while portentous brows of burnt cork did their best to make terrible a pair of very girlish and innocent eyes. A touch of realism which

the original Lady Macbeth lacked was

given by a streak of red crayon which lent a murderous significance to the small brown hand.

"I declare!" her admiring auditor went on, stitching away to make up for lost time, "I can't see but that you do's well's the lady I saw--only she was dressed prettier and went round with a wreath on her head. A wreath's always so becomin'! We used to wear 'em May Day when I was a girl. They was made o' paper flowers, all colors, so's you could suit your complexion, and when it didn't rain I must say we looked reel nice. 'Twas surprisin', though, how quick a few drops o' rain would wilt one o' them paper wreaths right down so's you'd scurcely know what 'twas meant for."

"Tell me some more about the girl with the wreath, Miss Becky," said Lady Macbeth, longing to curl herself up in a corner, but too mindful of her tragic dignity to unbend.

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Well, she looked reel pretty, but she didn't hev sperit enough to suit my idees. She was kind o' lackadaisical and nambypamby, 'n' when her young man sarsed her she didn't seem to hev nothin' to say for herself. I must say 'twas a heathenish kind of a play, anyway, 'n' I ain't s'prised that Uncle Bijah got sot agin it. The language wa'n't sech as I'd ben brought up to, either."

Lady Macbeth had leaned forward and was clasping her knees, thus unconsciously widening the expanse of pink gingham visible beneath the white robe. She was glad she had modified her Shakespeare to suit her listener, though "Out, dreadful spot" was not nearly as blood-curdling as the original.

Miss Becky meanwhile had not paused in her narration.

"There was a long winded young man," she was saying, "him that sarsed his girl. 'n' he went slashin' round, killin' folks off in a kind of an aimless way, an'—"

It must have been Hamlet that you saw!" cried Nannie, much excited. "Oh, I do so want to see Hamlet!" "Yes, Hamlet; that was it. And then

there was a ghost in it that sent the shivers down my back; 'n' a king and queen; 'n' the king looked for all the world like Deacon Ember, Jenny Lowe's grandpa that died before you was born, 'n' I declare I did enjoy it! 'Twas jest like bein' alive in history times! Why, I ain't had sech shivers down my spine 's the ghost give me, sence that day, till I seen you standin' there tryin' to wash your hands without any water, and your eyes rollin' fit to scare the cat!"

"Would you like to have me do it again for you, Miss Becky?" asked Nan, springing to her feet with renewed ardor; and straightway she stationed herself at the end of the little room and began propelling herself forward, with occasional erratic halts.

The September sunshine came slanting in through the tiny panes of glass at the window, and touched with impartial grace the youthful figure of distracted mien, the worsted tidies on the haircloth furniture, and the neat alpaca occupant of the stuffed "rocker." Again the sewing was forgotten and Miss Becky's glittering spectacles were fixed upon the tragic queen. As the queer little figure stalked solemnly down the room, eyes fixed in a glassy stare, hands wringing one another distressfully; as a moving wail rent the air to the effect that

"All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand," a most agreeable succession of shivers made a highway of Miss Becky's spine.

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Why don't you go to the theater now, Miss Becky?" Nannie asked, when, having laid aside her tragic toggery, she came in her own person to take her leave. "I should think you'd like to go again."

"Oh, yes, I should be reel tickled to go again, but I ain't got nobody to go with, and, well-there's other reasons besides !"

Nannie blushed to think how inconsiderate she had been, to force her old friend to allude even indirectly to her poverty, and she walked up the dusty road to her own gate filled with compunction and pity. Just outside the gate was a little wilderness of goldenrod and asters. She thought what a pity it was that they should get so gray with dust. Poor things, they could not help it; they had to stay where chance had planted them,

unless somebody picked them and ried them away, and even then th left their roots behind them. Someh they made her think of Miss Becky liv her little narrow stationary life all al in the old tumble-down farm-house. A just at this point in her reflections delightful scheme entered her head.

Now, Nannie was the recipient of slender monthly allowance intended gloves and ruchings, postage-stamps a such "small deer;" and, having spent last four months far from the allureme of city shops, she happened at this ju ture to be in funds. Her stock of glov to be sure, was pretty well exhausted, a Christmas was only a few months aw But Miss Becky was nearer still, a Nannie had no hesitation between the t claims. As a natural consequence, it h pened that, one pleasant day early October, Miss Becky, in her best bla bonnet, found herself steaming up Boston, being about to do Nannie "a r favor" by chaperoning her to the thea Miss Becky was so much oppressed the gravity of her responsibility that hardly took in the fact that she was go to the theater herself. They were to "The Shaughraun," a play which her b friend had assured Nannie was great;" and as the train rushed up town the young hostess was at a loss decide whether she was happier on own account or on Miss Becky's. how she was just a little disappoin about Miss Becky, she was so silent a stiff; and when they came out of the tion and walked up the crowded street, the old lady held her by the sle and looked bewildered and frightened

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So

"How long is it since you've been Boston?" Nannie asked, looking up i the anxious old face framed in by black silk bonnet which looked twice old-fashioned as it ever had before.

"Not sence Sophia was married 'n' came up to select her wedding gow I was quite a girl then, and I guess I more to home in a crowd than I do n We don't often hev much of a crowd our way."

They were among the first to take th seats at the theater. Mr. Ray had places for them only three rows back fr the stage, and, once established the Nannie felt that they were in a safe ha

where Miss Becky could get calm and receptive again. At first Miss Becky was almost too overawed to speak, but after a while she got the better of the situation and began telling Nannie all about Sophia and her "true so," and how they got lost on their way to the station and almost missed their train, which was the only train "out" in old times.

"I do hope we sha'n't miss our train to night, my dear! It doos seem 's though we might 'f they don't begin pretty soon," and the old lady for a very old lady she seemed to have become all of a sudden-fidgeted in her chair, and twisted her neck to see if the seats were not filling up.

"We sha'n't lose our train, Miss Becky," Nannie assured her. "You know it doesn't go till half-past five o'clock, and the play is always over before five. And even if

we did miss it we could take the seven o'clock one."

"Oh, dear, no! I sh'd feel reel bad to miss the train. Why, it gits dark before seven o'clock, 'n' 'twouldn't be safe for us to be goin' round the city streets after dark. We might git garroted or-or spoken to! Dear me! I wish they would begin." "If it gets late, Miss Becky, we won't wait for the end of the play," said Nannie, with a very distinct pang at the thought of missing anything.

"I think that would be better!" Miss Becky cried, with evident relief. "Don't you think it might be better to go out a little early, anyway? They'll be sech a crowd when everybody tries to go out to once that we might git delayed. My What a sight of people there is a'ready! And up in the galleries too! 'most afeared to stay in sech a crowd?" "Oh, no, Miss Becky. It's just like this always, and nothing ever happens."

Ain't you

"Them galleries don't look strong enough to hold many people. Why, Nannie, see! They ain't any pillows under 'em! What do you s'pose keeps 'em up?"

"I don't know, I'm sure, but they're safe enough."

At this point the orchestra struck up a popular tune and silence fell upon Miss Becky. She sat stiff and severe, gazing straight before her, and when Nannie ventured to make a remark she received only a reproving look in reply.

How

strange it was, Nannie thought. She had meant to give Miss Becky such a treat, and here sat her guest, looking anxious and distressed-yes, more anxious and distressed than she looked a year ago when her cow died. But, then, the play had not begun yet, Nannie reflected with a gleam of hope. When the play had once begun, Miss Becky would forget all her worries and be as "tickled" as she had meant her to be. And when once the curtain had gone up, Nannie at least had no more misgivings. Her fancy was instantly taken captive, first by the charming young officer and his pretty Irish sweetheart, then by the fine old priest, then by Con himself-dear, drol), happygo-lucky Con, with his picturesque foibles, his bubbling humor, and his phenomenal virtues. From the moment of his entry, with "Tatters" just not at his heels, Nannie was all smiles and tears.

Miss Becky meanwhile sat stiff as a ramrod, with a look of perplexity screwing her wrinkles all out of shape. Her bonnet had got somewhat askew, from her constant effort to keep an eye on those unsupported galleries, and there was a general air of discomfort about her which was the first thing that struck Nannie when, as the curtain fell upon the first act, she turned to look at her.

"Aren't you enjoying it, Miss Becky?" she asked with quick anxiety.

"Oh, yes, I'm hevin' a reel pleasant time. 'Tain't through yet, is it?"

"Why, no, it's only just begun. There's lots more! May Tolby says that Con gets them all out of all their troubles and almost gets killed himself!"

"I sh'd think 'twould take a long time," said Miss Becky. "Are you sure 'tain't 'most five o'clock?" "Oh, no, it's only three. See! And my watch is fast, too. Wasn't it funny about the letter?"

"Well, I didn't quite understand about that. What made 'em laugh so?"

"Why, that was because he couldn't read, and so he had to make it all up out of his head."

"Well!" said Miss Becky, with strong disapproval, “I don't think he'd ought to hev deceived his mother that way, do you?"

This was a poser: but at that moment the orchestra came to the rescue with a

new tune, and Nannie was spared the necessity of replying.

After that the play became every moment more exciting and the central figure more entirely captivating, and even between the acts Nannie was preoccupied and unobserving. They had got to the prison scene, with all its ingenious intrica cies of plot and stage machinery; Con had accomplished the rescue and was scrambling over the rocks, when suddenly the sharp report of a rifle rang out, followed by another and then another in quick succession. Then Nannie felt her arm clutched convulsively, and she heard Miss Becky's voice saying: "You must come right away, this very minute."

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Oh, please not, Miss Becky," she implored.

Miss Becky marched on regardless jostling crowds and thronging tean Her whole attitude had changed. S was no longer the timid, shrinking woman; she was the responsible cha eron, aware of the importance of charge, and nothing was ever to convin her that she had not saved Nannie Ra life on that occasion.

Then Nannie, as became a hostess, cepted the situation with the best gra in the world.

"I tell you what let's do, Miss Beck she said. "Let's go and get some i cream! That is, if you like it."

The stern old face softened and brig ened at the suggestion.

"Oh, yes, I like ice-cream, especia vanilla. But do you think we've

But there was a resolute gleam in Miss time enough ?" Becky's eye.

"Come right along, child, come right along with me!" and poor Nannie, to her consternation and chagrin, found herself absolutely obliged to follow.

The whole row of people stood up to let them pass, and every kind of look, glances of amusement and curiosity, of disgust and of sympathy, followed the oddly assorted pair, as they made their way out of the slip and then up the aisle.

Once outside the door the tension of Miss Becky's face relaxed, but she did not waver in her determination.

"There, child!" she said, as they walked down the slight incline of the long passageway to the street. "There! I'm glad I had strength given me to do my duty by you!"

"But, Miss Becky, there wasn't a bit of danger," Nannie protested, bravely keeping the tears back in her cruel disappointment. "Really there wasn't. Won't you please go back with me and just stand inside the door and see the end of it? I'm sure they'd let us stand inside the door." “Nannie Ray,” Miss Becky replied, looking very fiercely at the girl's flushed cheeks and imploring eyes, "if you knew as much about firearms as I do you wouldn't ask such a thing. But there! It's jest because you're young and inexperienced that your ma wanted me to come and look after you. I guess she'll be thankful she was so foresighted when she hears of the danger you was in." In her exaltation and relief of mind

"We've got an hour and a quarter fore the train goes. Let's come in h and get it."

From the crowded street they pas in at a doorway and walked betw marble counters to what seemed to M Becky like a scene in fairyland. Asce ing two or three steps on each side which an antlered stag kept guard, t stepped upon a great carpeted sp lighted from above, a space in the dle of which was a fountain spring high into the air and splashing back a great basin lined with shining sh and pebbles, over and among which g fish swam and dove like animated jew Ferns and palms grew all about the ba and in among the greenery was a 1 table where Nannie and her guest hidden safe away from the world.

"Well! This doos beat all!" the lady exclaimed, gazing at the foun with an expression of rapt delightthe expression that Nannie had cou upon seeing among the wrinkles.

"Do you like it?" she asked, all disappointment and chagrin forgotter

"Like it? Why, it's the most t place I ever was in! It's better than play; it's like bein' in a play your Jest see them pillows supportin' that lery, 'n' them picters of tropical fr 'N' this ice-cream! Why, it's diffe from what we hev at the Sunday-sc picnics! 'Pears to me it's more crea

Now at last Miss Becky had los thought of the passage of time. She

her ice-cream, just a little at a time, off the tip end of her spoon, and with every mouthful the look of content grew deeper. One of the little cakes that were served with the ice cream was a macaroon with a sugar swan upon it-"a reel little statoo of a swan," Miss Becky called it. She could not be persuaded to eat it, but she studied it with such undisguised admiration that Nannie ventured to suggest that she should take it home with her. Again Miss Becky was enchanted. wrapped it in her pocket-handkerchief and placed it carefully in her reticule, whence it was to emerge only to enter upon a long and useful career as a parlor

ornament.

She

"And now, Miss Becky," Nannie said, as they sat there embowered in palms and ferns, and listened to the plash of the fountain, didn't you enjoy the play at all ?"

you come over 'n' do that sleep walkin' piece for me. I don't want anything better'n that. 'F I can see you act that once in a while, 'n' hev this here Garding of Eden to think about, a founting playin' right in the house 'n' all, I ain't likely to want for amusement."

The best bonnet was still very much askew, but the pleasant old face within, whose wrinkles had resumed their accustomed grooves, was irradiated with a look of unmistakable beatitude; and some. how it was borne in upon Nannie that her theater party had been a success after all.

Disraeli and Gladstone

From Mr. Reginald B. Brett's book on "The Queen's Prime Ministers" we learn that Beaconsfield's conquest of the Queen, who at first held him as one of her pet aversions, was due not to "subservience to the will of the monarch," but to "masculine appreciation of her sex." "In trifles Disraeli never forgot the sex of the sover

member it."

Partisanship has invested Lord Beaconsfield in later

"Oh, yes," said Miss Becky, "I had a very pleasant time before they got so reckless with their guns. But I wonder whether they take sech pains with the eign. In great affairs he never appeared to rethe-efter 's they used to. Why, when I went with Uncle Bijah that time, they all days with the attributes of those artful men who, as i wore the most elegant clothes; even the men was dressed out in velvets and satins, and they wa'n't anybody on the stage that didn't make a good appearance."

"But, you know, this was a different sort of play, Miss Becky. The folks in The Shaughraun weren't kings and queens, but just every-day people.'

has been said, studied the passions of princes and con cealed their own, in order to acquire and retain influence. If Lord Beaconsfield, in his dealings with the sovereign, stooped to the employment of arts, they were of the simplest kind. He once described his method to a friend. I never contradict," he said: "I never deny : but I sometimes forget." To the bore or the Pharisee such maxims may seem degrading; but there is many a man, under the pressure of ministerial or domestic sufferings, who will envy the serene philosophy of Lord Beaconsfield.

A personal reminiscence of Mr. Brett's own is thus given:

His (Mr. Disraeli's) personal hatreds were well under

"Well, s'posin' they was; I don't see no excuse for that man Con goin' round lookin' so. I sh'd think he might at least git a whole coat to wear when he 'pears control. "I never trouble to be avenged," he once said before the public."

"I'm afraid you're sorry you came," said Nannie, very meekly, feeling quite ashamed of her poor little party.

"Oh, no, I ain't! Why, child, I'd hev come barefoot to see this place here, with the founting a-splashin' and the fishes a-gleamin'! Barefoot, I tell ye !"

It was a very forcible expression, yet Nannie was not quite reassured. still demurred.

She

to the writer; "when a man injures me, I put his name on a slip of paper and lock it up in a drawer. It is marvelous how men I have thus labeled have the knack of disappearing!" In judging men, though not infallible, he seldom erred Among his opponents, long before they had made a mark, he noticed Lord Rosebery and Sir William Harcourt. The former he took some pains to attract. Of the latter he said, "He is the only man in the House, except myself, who knows the history o his country." When Lord Hartington was making his hrst speech in Parliament. Mr. Disraeli turned to the colleague sitting next him, and murmured, "This young man will do." Among his friends he showed equal discrimination.

Of Mr. Gladstone this is recorded:

On the 4th of December, 1800, in the middle of the

"But the play was the principal thing, crisis that was destined to wreck his great policy, he

you know."

"The play? Well, I don't know," said Miss Becky, thoughtfully. “I don't know's I'm so terrible sot on the the-efter 's I thought for. I'd a good deal ruther hev

was see sitting quictly in the Library of the House o Commons reading " The Bride of Lammermoor." To some this might seem the calm of indifference, but not to those who heard the deep pathos with which he said, "For the past five years I have rolled the stone patiently up hill, and it has now rolled to the bottom again, and I am eighty-one years old."

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