"No-o, nobody particular."

She is not satisfied, but does not pursue the subject. "Well" (with a sigh) "to return to your beard- -Bah! what does the old woman want with us now? Apropos of beards, look at hers! Has not she a 'menton d'une fertilité désolante, as Gustave Droz says?" "So sorry to disturb you, but we are going to play Dumb Scrambo." This is Mrs. Webster's errand.

"And what is Dumb Scrambo ?" askes Paul, with a disgusted intonation, when, hunted out of their cold and quiet alcove, and the hostess having moved on to collect fresh recruits, he and Lenore advance to join the rest of the company.

“It is not bad fun," answers the girl-" a sort of silent charade, you know: did you never see it? Oh, you must have done!"

"But I have not."

"Oh, you know, the audience think of a word. You will be audience, will not you? I am sure that you can no more act than a tom-cat." "Well ?"

“And then, do not you know-they give the actors another word that rhymes with it; and then they-the actors, I mean-have to act in dumb-show all the other words that rhyme with it, till they hit upon the right one."

At this lucid explanation, given with surprising rapidity, Paul looks a good deal mystified. Mrs. Webster has some difficulty in collecting a troupe. Sylvia is among those who positively decline.

"Oh no, indeed-thanks, Mrs. Webster-I really could not: I am so childishly nervous that the feeling that everybody's eyes were fixed upon me would make every word I had to say go out of my head." "But you have no words to say; it is all dumb-show."

"Oh, thanks! but that really would not make any difference; I should have the same dreadful feeling that everybody was looking at me."

It being useless to try and convince her that some of the other actors might divert a portion of the dreaded public notice from her, Mrs. Webster desists.

Paul declines too, with that decisive brevity which forbids pressing. He is angry with Lenore for not having done likewise; but she is firm.

"Impossible, my dear boy," she says, in a smiling aside. "If they were to ask me to walk on my head to-night, I should have to try and do it. Have not they given us a huge family teapot, and is not this part-payment ?"

He is the more displeased when he sees Mr. Scrope march off, with the rest of the performers, into the dining-room, which opens out of the hall, and is converted into a temporary green-room.

It is a pretty old house, oak-floored; a step here, a step there, in

and out of the rooms. The audience have disposed themselves about the hall-fire, in chairs set a-row for them. The leading spirits amongst them have fixed upon a word, a very little one indeed, but which they hope will prove puzzling: it is jet. The word that rhymes with it, which they have given to the performers, is net. In the interval of waiting, until these latter shall be prepared to be dumbly funny, they beguile the time with talk.

"I always envy people who have aplomb enough to act, and do all those sort of things that make one conspicuous," says Sylvia, leaning back in her chair, biting the top of her black fan, and looking pensively over it at Paul, who happens to be her neighbour. "I am afraid I am not quite like other people, but I should feel ready to sink into the earth, don't you know. Now, Lenore has none of that feeling." "Evidently not," replies Paul, drily.

His eyes are fixed on the dining-room door: it is a little ajar, and, through the chink left, he sees a dim vision of green. Lenore has a green dress; he is straining his eyes to see whose are the legs that are in juxtaposition with that green gown.

"Last time we were here," continues Sylvia, "they acted the word 'tail;' and all the ladies fastened long boas to their dresses behind, and walked about the stage wagging them. You can have no conception how droll it looked."

Further talk is stopped by the opening of the dining-room door, and appearance of the performers. Mr. Scrope makes his entry on his hands and knees, crawling awkwardly along. It is plain that he is meant to represent a horse; his gait much more nearly resembles a cross between that of a bear and a monkey, but the equine intention is evident; it is rendered the more so by the fact of Major Webster being seated astride on his back, with a tall hat on his head, and a dog-whip in his hand with this latter he pleasantly flogs him round the stage. Then another Webster enters a heavy fellow, who has been distinguishing himself by making stupid and impossible suggestions comes up, and feels his legs. Mr. Scrope lashes smartly out at him, and then continues his victorious course, kicking and plunging round the room. It entails fearful exertion, and feelings verging on apoplexy; but he is rewarded by the plaudits of his fellows. Having unhorsed Major Webster, and sent that gallant officer rolling on the oak-floor, to the great benefit of his dress-clothes, the cortège retires, amid laughter and well-deserved hisses.

"How good for the knees of his trousers!" says Paul, who, with a mind relieved from the apprehension of seeing Lenore in some grotesquely affectionate, or affectionately grotesque, attitude with Scrope, is able to laugh as heartily as the others.

"Poor man! did not he look as if all the blood in his body had rushed to his head?" says a young lady, compassionately.

"That was a good bona fide kick he gave Webster," says a man"no mistake about it. I wonder how his shins feel!"

Meanwhile, the actors are talking over their late performance, and planning the next.

"It was not obvious enough," says Major Webster, who, being manager, is responsible for the éclat of the proceeding.

"It had no more to say to bet than I have," said Lenore, bluntly. "I cannot imagine how they ever guessed it; I do not believe they have."

"Well-no, perhaps not!" (looking rather mortified). "You see" (gnawing his moustache reflectively), "we were supposed to be betting about him" (nodding at Scrope). "It is rather difficult to be explicit when one does not say anything."

"Phew!" cries Scrope, wiping his face, and stroking down his tossed curly locks. "I had no idea that being a horse was such apoplectic work. Miss Lenore" (turning eagerly to her), “did you see me? Was not I a very free goer?"

"I did not look at you," replies Lenore, indifferently. "I was thinking what we could have next. What on earth rhymes with net?Set? pet? fret ?"

"Fret!" cries Paul's blue dinner-neighbour, determined not to be behind the rest, though in her the dramatic gift is, to say the least, latent. "Might not we all go in, and sit in a row with our hand

kerchiefs up to our eyes, crying, don't you know?".

"I do not think it would be very amusing," replies Lenore, drily. "Let? set? pet ?"

"What do you say

"Pet!" suggests the heavy youth, brilliantly. to one of us going in by himself, and pretending to be in an illhumour-pet-eh ?"

This idea meets with the silent contempt it so justly merits.

A pause.

"Stay-I have it," says Scrope, eagerly. "Eureka! One of us must be a baby—a dear little pet, you know; and some one else must carry us in, squalling and holloaing. I say, who will be the baby? Do not all speak at once!"

The warning is unnecessary.

"Well, I suppose, if nobody else will, I must," says Major Webster, rather ruefully." Scrope, you are the biggest; will you carry me in? Are you sure you can?" eyeing him rather doubtfully.

"Of course I can, my dear fellow, as soon as look at you; up with you!" answers Scrope, stoutly, and so stoops promptly down to embrace his nursling's legs.

"Stop a bit," cries the other, gravely, stroking his red beard. "I must have something on, must not I; or they will not know I am a baby?"

Scrope looks round on the properties scattered about-umbrellas, hats, door-mats, sheets, carving-knives.

"Here you are," he says, snatching up a white tablecloth. "This is the very thing for you. Who has got a big pin ?"

Having pinned the tablecloth round his waist, and tied an antimacassar over his head, Major Webster stands complete, ready to represent smiling infancy. There is some difficulty in getting him hoisted up; the tablecloth will get under Mr. Scrope's feet, and trip him up.

"For God's sake, don't drop me!" cries Webster, nervously. "Perhaps we had better give up the idea!"

"Not a bit of it! Get up on the chair; I shall have better purchase of you."

"And what am I to do?" asks Lenore, beginning to laugh by anticipation. "Have I no role?"

"Oh, you must be nurserymaid, don't you know?" says Scrope, panting, and clasping the Major's legs as he stands on the chair; "and give him the bottle when he holloas. There, take that hearthbrush, and shoot it out at him; that will do as well as anything else."

"But a bottle does not shoot out," objects Lenore, whose acquaintance with the ways and appurtenances of infancy, though meagre, is apparently more exact than the young man's.

"What does that signify ?" says Scrope, breathlessly, having with one final effort heaved up his bearded baby. "One must leave something to the imagination."

"For God's sake, mind the step!" cries Webster, gloomily, looking down with apprehensive eye from his unnatural elevation.

It is nervous work, but they get through it triumphantly. Mr. Scrope staggers along, with labouring breath, and arms firmly clasped round his baby's tableclothed legs; who, for his part, clutching Scrope convulsively round the neck, while his bronzed face and beard emerge absurdly from his antimacassar, gives utterance to a series of the dismallest deep yells, supposed to represent the faint cries of infancy. Lenore walks gravely alongside, occasionally shooting out her hearth-brush at him: whether or not the audience discover that it is the mystic symbol of an 'Alexandra' bottle will never be known till the Last Day. Having completed the circuit of the room, and made a playful feint of depositing his "pet" in Jemima's lap, Mr. Scrope and his coadjutors retire.

"I thought it was Dumb Scrambo," says Paul, drily, as Major Webster's last bellow dies on the ear.

"I suppose that only applies to articulate sounds," replies Jemima, who is on his other side. "Bah!" (wiping her eyes); "it is an insult to one's understanding to laugh, but one cannot help it. After all, it is not half so good as charades."

"Paul should have been at the Ansons' the other night," says Sylvia, with a little coy hesitation and stumbling (both quite thrown away) over his name; then, turning to him:

"You should have seen Lenore, as barmaid, running about and saying all sorts of impertinent things to the gentlemen, in a Breton cap. Do you know, she has got an immensely becoming Breton cap ! I tell her that it is too matronly for her, and that she ought to give it to me. Do you give your consent ?" (opening and shutting her fan

bashfully).

"Very

"A barmaid!" repeats Paul, with a slightly clouded face. entertaining, I daresay; and who were the gentlemen that she said. impertinent things to?"

"You need not be jealous," interposes Jemima, with a rather dry laugh. "Only old Mr. Anson; he came in as Boots in a pea-jacket. Now, if there is an absurd sight in the world, it is an old fat man in a pea-coat."

"Ah! true, so it was!" says Sylvia, languidly. know, was the word; that was inn, and constant".

"Inconstant, you

"How long they are in coming this time!" cries Jemima, hastily interrupting. "What can they be doing?"

"And constant?" says Paul, leaning forward, while his eyes shine with a rather doubtful expression. "How was that acted?" "I don't think I will tell you," says Sylvia, with charming arch"You know, when the cat's away the mice will play.' Well, Lenore was supposed to be engaged to Charlie Scrope. Poor Charlie! he tormented me out of my life to act too, but I said, 'No! no! no! not my line at all!"

ness.

"Well-but about Lenore?" interrupts Paul, impatiently.

"Oh yes, to be sure. Charlie was supposed to have been away for five or six years, and to come back suddenly, and then they rushed into each other's arms; of course" (tapping him playfully with her fan), "it was only a stage-embrace-cela va sans dire-but it made us all laugh!"

The cloud deepens on the young man's forehead. "It must have been almost better than the barmaid," he says, grimly, turning away. Meanwhile, the ingenious troupe, still at fault for the right word, have hit upon another wrong one-“ Wet.”

"You carry in a candle," says Major Webster to Lenore, thrusting the weapon indicated into her hand, "and pretend to catch fire; blow out the candle and drop it, and begin to scream like mad; and then, don't you know, we will all rush in with buckets, and put you out." "But must I scream much-or little ?"

"Oh, the louder the better; and you must go on screaming till we come."

Lenore does exactly as she is bid. Shrieking at the pitch of her