She was so enthusiastic that Chris felt quite sorry that she must destroy this charming arrangement by pointing out that the room was wanted for the ball on Friday night, and that there would be no time to put up a stage on Thursday and to take it down and re-arrange the room for the night after. “Well, there must be some other room in a big place like this,” said Mrs. Graham-Shute, still buoyantly. “Come, you set your wits to work to help me, like a dear girl, and I’m sure we shall manage something between us.” Chris began to see that she had better indulge her, as she would want something to keep her occupied during the next few days. “There’s a great place that was built for a barn, that was used for a school treat in the summer, I believe. It’s down by the new stables, a quarter of a mile away. I don’t know whether that would do. There are some tables and trestles piled up in one corner; perhaps they could be made into a stage.” “The very thing!” cried Mrs. Graham-Shute, enthusiastically. “I knew we should manage it somehow.” But Chris saw difficulties where her companion saw none. “But you will want a lot of people, performers and spectators too,” she objected. “And then, have you considered that there will be dresses to be made, and scenes to be rehearsed? There’s a lot of work to be done to get _tableaux_ up properly.” But to get a thing up properly was what Mrs. Graham-Shute never troubled to do. To get it up somehow was always the extreme limit of her ambition. She was already perfectly satisfied, and she proceeded at once to settle other details as summarily as the first. “We will do fairy tales, I think,” she said. “The dresses will be cheap and easily made. We can have the ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ with Lilith as Beauty, and ‘Robinson Crusoe’ and ‘Red Riding Hood,’ and--and any of those things, don’t you know? With all my cousin’s curiosities and things we can make a lovely palace for the ‘Sleeping Beauty.’” Mrs. Abercarne had raised her double eye-glass, and was looking horror-struck at this suggested desecration. Chris, with a frightened glance at her mother, hastened to say: “But, then, the performers? Who would you have for the _tableaux_?” “Oh, well, there must be some family in the neighbourhood quite used to such things. There always is, you know. I must ask my cousin John about that. I suppose you wouldn’t know of anybody?” “Well, there are the Brownes. Mr. Browne is a brewer, the head of the firm of Browne & Browne. It’s a large family, and they can act, I believe.”