As he was speaking Mr. Willis approached. He listened to Professor Harrison's opinion and kept his eyes on Denas while he did so. He thought her appearance taking, and was pleased to give her voice a trial. The hall was empty and very dull, but a piano was pulled forward to the front of the stage and Roland took his seat before it. Denas was told to step to the front and sing to the two gentlemen in the gallery. They applauded her first song enthusiastically, and Denas sang each one better. But it was not their applause she listened to--it was the soft praises of Roland, his assurances of her success, which stimulated her even beyond her natural power. At the conclusion of the trial Mr. Willis offered Denas twelve pounds a week, and if she proved a favourite the sum was to be gradually increased. The sum, though but a pittance of Roland's dreams, was at least a livelihood and an earnest of advance, and it was readily accepted. Then the little company sat down upon the empty stage and discussed the special songs and costumes in which Denas was to make her debut. Never before in all his life had Roland found business so interesting. He said to Denas, as they talked over the affair at their own fireside, that he thought he also had found his vocation. He felt at home on the stage. He never had felt at home in a bank or in a business office. He was determined to study, and create a few great characters, and become an actor. He felt the power; it was in him, he said complacently. "Now," he added, "Denas, if you become a great singer and I a great actor, we shall have the world at our feet. And I like actors and those kind of people. I feel at home with them. I like the life they lead--the jolly, come-day go-day, wandering kind of life. I never was meant for a respectable man of business. No: the stage! the stage! That is my real life. I am certain of it. I wonder I never thought of it before." It had been arranged that Denas was to open with Neil Gow's matchless song of "_Caller Herrin'!_" and her dress was of course that of an idealized Newhaven fisher-girl. Her short, many-coloured skirts, her trig latched shoon, her open throat, and beautiful bare arms lifted to the basket upon her head was a costume which suited her to admiration. When she came stepping down the stage to the immortal notes, and her voice thrilled the house with the ringing musical "cry" that none hear and ever forget: Cal-ler her-rin'! cal-ler her-rin'! cal-ler her-rin'! the assembly broke into rapturous delight. It was a song not above their comprehension and their feeling. It was interpreted by one to whom the interpretation was as natural as breathing. She was recalled again, and again, and again, and the uproar of approval only ceased when the next singer advanced with a roll of music in his hand. He was a pale, sentimental young man whose forte was despairing love-songs, but "The last links are broken That bound me to thee"