“To teach in the Sunday-school. No?” as Bertie shook his head. “To give the pug or the canary a dose of medicine?”
“No!” he cried, triumphantly. “You’ve lost. I take large nines,” and he held out his tiny fist. “Miss Amelia’s modest request is that I should give a reading at the forthcoming village entertainment.”
Olivia laughed.
“I’d forgotten the entertainment,” she said.
“My dear Olivia,” murmured Miss Amelia, solemnly, “you should never be weary of doing good.”
“I do too little to be anything like weary,” said Olivia. “Of course you have consented, Bertie?”
He made a gesture of mock horror.
“I!” he exclaimed. “Great goodness! Fancy me attempting to recite! Why, I should have stage fright, and fall in a fit off the platform!” and he laughed. “Now, Faradeane here is a first-class amateur actor, and used to all this kind of thing——” He pulled up short, warned by Faradeane’s grave, steady gaze, and Olivia’s look of astonishment. “That is, I should think so,” said poor Bertie. “He looks like it, while I——Oh! the mere thought of facing a room full of people sends cold shivers through me.”
He had not got out of it so badly after all, and, quite unwittingly, Miss Amelia helped.
“Really,” she simpered, surveying the handsome face, with its grave smile, “really, I think Bertie is right, and that Mr. Faradeane has—er—that kind of face, and I am sure he will not refuse to help us in our effort to amuse our humbler neighbors.”