‘Thanks, most acid Rosalind!’ murmured Geoff, meekly. ‘Could you deign, as spokesman of the very acute triangle, to suggest something?’ ‘Certainly. There is the rear of the brush kitchen in plain sight, to convey the idea of a rustic hut. To be sure, it’s a good distance to the left, but let the audience screw round in their seats when they hear the voices, and Adam, Oliver, and Orlando can walk out carelessly, and go through their scene right there.’ ‘Admirable!’ quoth Geoff. ‘We bow to your superior judgment.’ ‘What an inspiration that was to bring those Chinese lanterns for the Fourth of July; they have just saved us from utter ruin,’ said Margery, who was quietly making leaf-trimming. ‘Yes, the effect is going to be perfectly gorgeous!’ exclaimed Polly, clasping her hands in anticipation. ‘How many have we? Ten? Oh, that’s splendid; and how many candles?’ ‘As many as we care to use,’ Phil answered, from the top of the ladder where he was at work. ‘And look at my arrangement for holding them to these trees. Aren’t they immense?’ ‘By the way,’ said Bell, ‘don’t forget the mossy banks under those trees, for stage seats; and make me some kind of a thing on the left side, to swoon on when I sniff Orlando’s gory handkerchief.’ ‘A couple of rocks,’ suggested Jack. ‘Not exactly,’ replied the critical Rosalind, with great dignity. ‘I am black and blue already from practising my faint, and I expect to shriek with pain when I fall to-morrow night.’ ‘St. Jacob’s Oil relieves stiffened joints, smooths the wrinkles from the brow of care, soothes lacerated feelings, and ’ushes the ’owl of hinfancy,’ remarked Geoffrey serenely, as he prepared to build the required mossy banks. ‘My dear cousin (there are times when I am glad it is only second cousin), have you a secret contract to advertise a vulgar patent medicine? or why this eloquence?’ laughed Bell. ‘And, Jack,’ suggested Polly, ‘you don’t seem to be doing anything; fix a stump for me to sit on while Orlando and Rosalind are making love.’ ‘All right, countess. I’d like to see you stumped once in my life. Shall we have the canvases brought for stage carpets?’ ‘We say no,’ cried Rosalind, firmly. ‘We shall be a thousand times more awkward stumbling over stiff billows of carpet. Let’s sweep the ground as clean and smooth as possible, and let it go for all the scenes.’ ‘Yes, we shall then be well _grounded_ in our parts,’ remarked Phil, hiding his head behind a bunch of candles. ‘Take care, young man,’ laughed Polly, ‘or you may be “run to earth” instead.’ ‘Or be requested by the audience to get up and dust,’ cried the irrepressible Jack, whose wit was very apt to be of a slangy character. ‘Now let us settle the interior, or I shall go mad.’ ‘Bell and I have it all settled,’ said Geoffrey, promptly. ‘The background is to be made of three sheets hung over a line, and the two sides will be formed of canvas carpets; the walls will have Japanese fans, parasols, and—’