Then Ralph sang in his deep baritone, “Fear no more the heat o' the sun.”
And the click of the spinning-wheels seemed to keep time to the slow measure of the fine old song.
Laddie, the collie, was there. He lay at Ralph's feet with a solemn face. He was clearly thinking out the grave problems attaching to the place of dogs on this universe.
“Didn't I hear my name awhile ago?” said a voice from behind the door. The head of the speaker emerged presently. It was Monsey Laman. He had been banished with the “old folks.”
“Come your ways in, schoolmaster,” cried Robbie Anderson. “Who says 'yes' to a bout of play-acting?”
As a good many said “Yes,” an armchair was forthwith placed at one corner of the kitchen with its back to the audience. Monsey mounted it. Robbie went out of doors, and, presently re-entering with a countenance of most woeful solemnity, approached the chair, bent on one knee, and began to speak,—
Oh wad I were a glove upo' yon hand
'At I med kiss yon feàce.
A loud burst of laughter rewarded this attempt on the life of the tragic muse. But when the schoolmaster, perched aloft, affecting a peuking voice (a strangely unnecessary artistic effort), said,—
“Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?” and the alleged Romeo on his knees replied, “Nowther, sweet lass, if owther thoo offend,” the laughter in the auditorium reached the point of frantic screams. The actors, like wise artists, were obviously indifferent to any question of the kind of impression produced, and went at their task with conscientious ardor.
The little schoolmaster smiled serenely, enchantingly, bewitchingly. Robbie panted and gasped, and sighed and moaned.