excitement, and growled out sundry reminiscences of how he had "see'd 'Amlet acted nigh
upon a matter of fifty year ago in England."
He was sure it must have been Hamlet, because
he remembered there "were a ghost in it, with
a kind of a tin-pot on his head." But, on being
pressed with interrogations by Biddy, it turned
out that this striking evidence of the play having
been Hamlet was not so conclusive as old Joe
supposed, for the performance had taken place
at Bartholomew Fair, where ghosts—even ghosts
with tin-pots on their heads—are known to
have been numerous.

The rehearsals of the tragedy had gone off
very satisfactorily. Mabel had indeed been a
little surprised at the complicated and minute
instructions given to her by Mr. Percival as to
the exact spot on which she must stand during
the scenes between Hamlet and Ophelia; when
she must turn her head towards him, and when
she must look away; how many steps she
must take in this direction, and how many
in the other; and so forth. But she
endeavoured to remember and comply with his
injunctions.

"Percival's business in Hamlet is capital,"
said Mr. Snell, the low comedian. "All his
own, too. I don't know another Hamlet on
the stage with such business in the play
scene."

"Sir," remarked Mrs. Darling, with much
stateliness, "I do not admire it. I may be in
error, but I deem that over-elaboration is a
fault. I have seen John Kemble, in my youth,
and Edmund Kean in his best days, and I do
not think that they depended for their success
on their business."

"Oh, hang it!" returned Mr. Snell (who was
without any veneration for the traditions of the
old school, and who professed his belief that
half the famous actors of the past generation
"would be jolly well hissed if they came bow-
wowing on to the boards of the London stage
now-a-days"), "Oh, hang it! Mrs. Darling, one
must have something new, you know. Can't
keep on in the old grooves for ever."

"What do they mean by Mr. Percival's
capital business in Hamlet, aunt?" asked Mabel
that day, after rehearsal.

Before his mother could reply, Jack began:

"Why, they mean that kind of Scotch reel
he dances with everybody, Mabel. In and
out, backwards and forwards, up the middle
and down again. He crosses the stage
nineteen times in that scene with you. I counted
them."

"The business of a part, Mabel," said Aunt
Mary, "is, properly speaking, its dumb show,
its pantomime. You know every one has his
own ideas as to his movement and position with
regard to the other characters."

"Pantomime with a vengeance!" exclaimed
Jack, who was inveterate against the eminent
tragedian "from the principal theatres, &c. &c."
"He does everything but tumble head over
heels; and I shouldn't be surprised to see
him. do that before the evening's over. A
somersault over Ophelia's grave would be
striking, and new. That's his great
notion."

"Don't be severe, Jack; I don't like to hear
it," said gentle, good-natured Aunt Mary.

But Mabel, in her heart, was inclined to agree
with her cousin.

At length arrived the eventful Friday evening.
The play was to begin at seven o'clock,
and long before that hour the pit and gallery
were filled with an expectant crowd. The
boxes, too, began to show a sprinkling of
visitors; and the gap of empty crimson benches
in the centre of the semicircle attracted great
attention; for it was known that those seats
were reserved for Lady Popham and her party.
About two minutes before seven the box doors
were thrown open with a mighty clatter, and
the plunging of hoofs and rolling of wheels
was heard coming up from the outside of the
theatre. A gay party of ladies and gentlemen
entered and took their seats, and in the very
centre—for Sir Bernard Popham's widow had
no idea of hiding her light under a bushel—sat
the lady of Cloncoolin, looking about the
theatre with a heavy gold eye-glass, and uttering
her remarks upon everything and everybody
in a shrill, penetrating little voice. Lady Popham
was a very small fragile old woman of
nearly seventy years of age; upright as a dart,
bright-eyed, nimble-tongued, active. She wore
a double range of false teeth, which seemed a
little too large for her mouth, and made her
lisp in her speech, and a jet black wig with stiff
curls that framed her small wizened face on
each side. She had the tiniest hands and feet
in the world, and was always dressed in the
richest stuffs and brightest colours that she
could find. On the present occasion she wore
an amber brocaded silk gown and a white
cashmere cloak on her shoulders; a wreath of
artificial roses was perched on the top of her
wig, and trembled at every movement of her
restless little head. A grotesque figure enough,
one would say; and yet it is a fact that Lady
Popham, however ridiculous she might appear,
possessed that indefinable air of good breeding
which stamped her as a gentlewoman, and she
could, moreover, assume when she chose a
dignified, lofty bearing that was quite imposing.

On the evening of Mr. Percival's benefit,
however, she was neither lofty nor dignified;
but very good humoured and talkative, turning
her big eye-glass hither and thither, and
nodding right and left to her friends and
neighbours as they took their seats around
her.

Punctually at seven o'clock the orchestra
began the overture. It was, of course, a
selection of Irish airs, but newly chosen, and
arranged by Mr. Trescott, who possessed, from
long practice and experience, some skill in such
patchwork.

"Jerry the Buck" figured in it as a matter
of course; and the stamping of feet keeping
time to it in the gallery overhead, made the