way first-nighter and squire of "Janes," she had entered the room, humming unconsciously but so entrancingly to herself that the knee of the corpse was seen to twitch—the whole side of the coffin was down—vainly pawing the air as if trying to execute a one-step. Now even if exaggerated, this gruesome story has much of truth, in its spirit. And she seemed even now to be giving just such a farcical touch to the whole proceedings.
It seems strange, however, that she should have had any effect on forthright Sally, always so straight-seeing, courageous, and loyal. But Sally's nerves were snarled and jangling. Perhaps in her distraught state she was savage, and even welcomed, as a showing up, a facing of facts, the burlesque into which the ceremony was threatening to turn. Afterwards she never knew whether to weep with vexation, shudder in horror, or to laugh, at the madness, the wild confusion, the absurdity, of it all.
In any event, now, as the evil influence in the famous play transforms by its very propinquity the characters in the cast to its own light, to its own kind—the place, the people were changed for her. So, too, a pilot of the spot-light can transform the whole complexion of a scene by throwing a new hue upon it. Sally's eyes seemed, for the moment, to be following some such baleful rays projected from that window. They were all neighbours whom she had known and loved,—simple, kindly folk, walking well-ordered ways. Yet now in the twinkling of an eye, the chatter, the witticisms—from years of acquaintance she could almost quote them verbatim—instead of being lighthearted, cheery, and amus-
