'For worse?' asked Felix anxiously, as he paused.

'I do not say so,' returned Mr. Ryder. 'Perhaps what I chiefly wished at this moment was to clear myself in your eyes of treachery to your father.'

'No, sir, that I never could suspect.'

But the conversation might well leave heaviness behind it. Was it come to Edgar's views being such as to startle Mr. Ryder! who, for that matter, had of late shown much less laxity of opinion than in his younger and more argumentative days; and there was little comfort in supposing that these were not real honest doubts at all, only apologies for general carelessness and irreligion.

Yet with even this trouble in the recess of the heart, this was the merriest winter the Underwood household had known since their father's time.

Edgar chose to frame the play upon the Italian form of the story, where the impostor is a starveling poet, nicknamed Signor Topo, or Master Ratton, because his poverty had brought him to live in a hay- loft. This character he a.s.sumed, and no doubt it fitted him better than either the English cobbler or the German doctor; besides, as he said, sham court costume is always the easiest to contrive: but Cherry was by no means prepared to find the Rat-like poet the secret admirer of a daughter of the Serene Highness who owned the jewel.

'Such a monstrous interpolation,' quoth Geraldine.

'Interpolations are the beauty of the thing. It would be as flat as a pancake without.'

'And Wilmet won't like it.'

'Wilmet must be brought to the level of ordinary human nature.'

'I don't feel as if this were using her well. You know she expressly consented to this "because there was no nonsense in it."'

'I.e. if it had been Cinderella, it would have been improper; if the Sleeping Beauty, highly scandalous. Eh, Cherie?'

'You know I think Mettie _does_ carry her scruples pretty far,' said Geraldine, trying not to laugh, 'but I won't be a party to cheating her; and if this young princess is to come in, she must be told of it.'

'Or she will take out her Gorgon's head in the midst, and petrify her subjects! Maybe it will be safest to prepare her. You see, such discipline reigns here, that a poor Bohemian like me doesn't know where to be.'

Accordingly, Edgar said in his airy way, 'O Mettie, by-the-by, we have put in a part for little Miss Knevett.'

'Indeed! I thought it was to be all among ourselves. Have you spoken to her?'

'Of course; and she is in the ecstatic state of preparation of spangles and coronets.'

'I wish you had spoken before. It would be hard to disappoint her now. What is she to be?'

'Nothing less than heroine. There must be some sort of conventional catastrophe, or the whole concern falls flat.'

'I don't see why it should not fall flat,' said Wilmet, with a sober air that drove Cherry into an uncontrollable convulsion of laughter; 'it would amuse the children just as well.'

'The children of six, maybe,' said Edgar gravely, 'but hardly the children of sixteen. Have you no mercy on them, my venerable sister?'

Wilmet had arrived at such a pa.s.s of resignation as to perceive that 'a fuss' on her part might be more mischievous than any 'nonsense' in which Edgar was likely to indulge in public, especially with Geraldine as his coadjutor. She tried to obtain some rea.s.surance that there was 'nothing more silly than needful in this play of yours.'

'No, indeed. There is just a little mock courtship; but as that is the case with nine-tenths of the stories in the world, I don't think you gain much by turning it out.'

'I did hope for once in a way we ourselves might be quit of it.'

'It is hard on you,' said Cherry, smiling; 'but it would make a great uproar to disturb all now.'

'At any rate, I have found the old receipt for tea-cakes,' responded Wilmet, whose mind was almost as much preoccupied with the entertainment of the body as her sister's with that of the mind.

She had relented so far as to invite two little girls and their widowed mother, from whom there was no danger of reciprocities, Lance had prevailed to have Will Harewood as one of the robbers; and the Miss Pearsons were coming to behold their niece; besides which, Stella having imparted the great secret to Mr. Froggatt, Felix found the good old gentleman and his wife burning to have an invitation.

Thus the party would be the largest Wilmet had ever contemplated; and the mysteries of tea and supper were so congenial to her housewifely soul, that she did not distress herself about the frequent rehearsals in Miss Pearson's empty school-room, the transformations of garments under the needles of Cherry and Robina, nor even the wildness and ecstacy of all the children from Lance downwards, all bursting with secrets, and letting them out at every corner of their grinning mouths.

It must soon be over, and Felix seemed to be enjoying it thoroughly; and Wilmet could tolerate a great deal when either Felix or Alda enjoyed. He was much too busy with Christmas accounts to undertake any part that needed learning, but he was pressed into the service as a courtier, only with a dispensation from either speaking or rehearsing; while Wilmet utterly scouted any idea of taking any share in the drama, having enough to do in her own character.

And in that character she was left alone to entertain the guests, for even Cherry was in request as prompter and a.s.sistant dresser--nay, with the a.s.sistance of Theodore's accordion, formed the whole band of musicians at the ball which opened the performance, and which required the entire corps dramatique. Robina, as the Elderly Princess, demonstratively dropped her bracelet, with a ruby about as big as a pigeon's egg (being the stopper of a scent-bottle), and after the dancers had taken some trouble not to step on it, they retired, and it was stolen by the gang of robbers, cloaked up to their corked eyebrows and moustaches.

Then appeared in his loft--supplied with straw culled from packages at the printing-house--the poet, well got up in his knickerbockers and velvet smoking-cap, scarf and guitar, soliloquising in burlesque rhyme on his fallen state and hopeless admiration, and looking very handsome and disconsolate, until startled by the cry behind the scenes--

'O yes! O yes! O yes!

By command of her Highness!

Lost, stolen, or strayed, Gone to the dogs or mislaid, Her Highness' splendid ruby.

Whoso finds it--wit or b.o.o.by, Tinker, tailor, soldier, lord-- Let him ask what he will, he shall have his reward.'

Thereupon the poet, communicating his designs in a stage soliloquy, disguised himself in a tow wig and beard, and a railway rug turned up with yellow calico; and the scene shifting to the palace, he introduced himself to the Elderly Princess as the greatest of spiritualists--so great, that--

'Detective police are an ignorant fable: No detective can equal a walnut-wood table.'

But he required as a medium a maiden fair and lovely, but with a heart as yet untouched, otherwise the spirits might be offended. The only lady who was available was, of course, the youthful princess Fiordespina, whose alarm and reluctance had been contrived so as to be highly flattering to the disguised poet.

The dinner scenes, at which the robbers presented themselves in turn, and imagined that they heard themselves counted, went off in due order; also the test, when the courtiers tried to pose the spiritualist with making him divine what they brought him in a covered dish, and were disconcerted by his sighing out,

'Alas! alas! see envy batten On the unhappy Master Ratton!'

while the rat leaped out from beneath the lid!

Then came the avowal by the robber: but the conclusion was so far varied, that the jewel having been judiciously hidden, the poet made use of his voice and his guitar to throw the Lady Fiordespina into a mesmeric sleep before the court, and then to cause a table to rap out the letters, which she interpreted so as to lead to the spot.

It was the prettiest scene of all, his music and song were so graceful; and in spite of some suppressed giggling, the att.i.tude and countenance of Fiordespina were so very pretty in her trance. Nothing more was left save the restoration of the ruby, the claiming of the reward, and the final tableau, in which Ratton and Fiordespina, in their native good mien, had their hands joined by the benignant Elderly Princess; while, to the equal amus.e.m.e.nt and confusion of all, good old Mrs. Froggatt fairly burst out crying with excitement and admiration!

Mrs. Vincent, the young widow, was likewise enchanted, and so was Miss Maria Pearson; but Wilmet could not quite fathom the tone of the elder and graver sister, or decide whether it were her own dissatisfaction that made her think Miss Pearson had not expected to see such a role bestowed upon her niece.

The doors between the drawing-room and the theatre were opened again; the boys handed round negus and lemonade; and Felix, standing over Cherry, said, 'Lance's circus speculation would not be a bad one.

There's plenty of dramatic talent in the family.'

'Did you like it, Felix!'

'I could tell exactly which parts were yours and which Edgar's,' was the ambiguous answer, as he turned to secure the Princess Fiordespina for the dance that was to crown the performance.

'O Mr. Underwood! Oh yes, thank you! but--'