“There are a great many things, Pat-ricia,” she said slowly, “that a girl ought to do if she were logical, and consistent, and acted up to what she preached. But she isn’t, and she don’t. I’m not in a mite of a hurry to get back...”
The hall was packed to overflowing for the evening concert, additional chairs were placed down the aisles, and even after they were filled, a number of people had to be content with standing places at the back. The performers peeping round the corner of the stage felt a mingling of nervousness and excitement, and vociferously instructed every one else to pull his or her self together, and do his or her best.
It soon became apparent, however, that the audience was indulgent to the point of boredom, applauding with consistency each item, good or bad, and demanding thereto an encore. Esmeralda’s entrance brought down the house, Pixie’s Irish ditties evoked shouts of applause, and the part songs but narrowly escaped being turned into choruses. It was, indeed, a village audience of the old-fashioned kind, assembled together in pleasant, friendly spirit, with the object of being amused, and determined that that object should be fulfilled.
The squire was a favourite, as he well deserved to be, and his beautiful wife was regarded with a fervent admiration, which her very aloofness had served to heighten. Other ladies might call round at cottage doors, and talk intimately concerning book clubs, and Dorcas societies, but no one expected such condescension from Mrs Geoffrey Hilliard. She whizzed along in her great green car, or cantered past on her tall brown horse, followed by a groom in livery, vouchsafing a gracious smile in return for bows and curtseys. On Sundays she sat ensconced in the great square pew, a vision of stately beauty. ... The good dames of the village felt it the great privilege of this evening to see the squire’s lady without her hat, with diamonds flashing at her throat, smiling, laughing, singing—a goddess descended from her pedestal to make merry on their behalf.
And so at last in the midst of this simple happiness came the time for the last item on the programme—that double tableau which every person in the hall was fated to remember, to the last day of his life!