'Yes, there are, and I should have been to see you before, but Frank has just got some new scores from London, and he wanted me to try them over with him. There's one that's just been produced in Paris--the loveliest music you ever heard in all your life. Come up to my place to-morrow and I'll play it over to you. But talking of music, I hear that you're getting on nicely.' 'I think I'm improving; Montgomery comes to practise with me every morning.' 'He's all very well for the piano, but he can't teach you to produce your voice. What does he know? That brat of a boy! I'll tell you what I'll do,' cried Leslie, suddenly confronting Kate: 'we're going to York next week. Well, I'll introduce you to a first-rate man. He'd do more with you in six lessons than Montgomery in fifty. And the week after we shall be at Leeds. I can introduce you to another there.' 'The curtain is just going up, Miss Leslie,' cried the call boy. 'All right,' cried the prima donna, throwing the hare's-foot to the dresser, 'I must be off now. We'll talk of this to-morrow.' Immediately after the stately figure of Beaumont entered. Putting her black bag down with a thump on the table she exclaimed: 'Good heavens! not dressed yet! My God! you'll be late.' 'Late for what?' asked Kate in astonishment. 'Didn't Mr. Lennox tell you that you had to sing my song, the market-woman's song, in the first act?' 'No, I heard nothing of it.' 'Then for goodness' sake make haste. Here, stick your face out. I'll do your make-up while the dresser laces you. But you'll be able to manage the song, won't you? It's quite impossible for me to get dressed in time. I can't understand Mr. Lennox not having told you.' 'Oh yes, I shall be able to get through it--at least I hope so,' Kate answered, trembling with the sudden excitement of the news. 'I think I know all the words except the encore verse.' 'Oh, you won't need that,' said Beaumont, betrayed by a twinge of professional jealousy. 'Now turn the other cheek. By Jove! we've no time to lose; they're just finishing the wedding chorus. If you're late it won't be my fault. I sent down word to the theatre to ask if you'd sing my song in the first act, as I had some friends coming down from London to see me. You know the Marquis of Shoreham--has been a friend of mine for years. That'll do for the left eye.' 'If you put out your leg a little further I'll pull your stocking, and then you'll be all right,' said the dresser, and just staying a moment to pull up her garters in a sort of nervous trance, she rushed on to the stage, followed into the wings by Beaumont, who had come to hear how the song would go.