“Perhaps Alfred and two of the girls might do something in the chorus without damaging it.” “We must go and find out. And--what about Mrs. Harter?” Claire shrugged her shoulders. “I think it’s rather a mistake to ask her, myself. But please do exactly as you like about it. If her voice is essential, then I suppose she must be asked.” “Now, what about the stage itself?” Nancy Fazackerly was quite wise enough not to press the question of Mrs. Harter any further, and they went off into a discussion as to the structure and position of the stage. I asked Claire afterwards if she really objected very much to letting old Ellison’s daughter take part in the performance. “She won’t expect to be asked here afterwards, if that’s what you’re afraid of.” “How do you know she won’t? I thought that she looked like a pushing sort of woman, and common.” “Do you remember how they did those portraits of her in Sallie’s game the other day?” “Yes. Why?” “It struck me as odd that they’d all thought enough about her to find it worth while--although not one of them knows her in the least intimately.” “As I said at the time, Miles, she has personality. I suppose I have personality myself. It’s an indefinable sort of thing.” We left it at that. Mrs. Fazackerly and Captain Patch were to have a week in which to prepare their program, and after that there was to be a general assembly of the prospective performers. “And you’ll preside, won’t you, to settle about parts, and then no one will be hurt or offended,” said Mrs. Fazackerly, speaking, I fear, from a wide past experience of the wonderful capacities of other people for being hurt or offended on the very slightest provocation. I asked them to hold the meeting in the library and promised to do my best that no one should be either hurt or offended. On the day that I was expecting them I drove down to the Mill House in the morning to see Mary. I drive out in a low basket-carriage drawn by a very old pony, because that is the only safe way in which I can convey my semi-helpless person about without assistance. She was in the garden, as usual, doing something with a trowel. Mary never seems surprised to see me, only pleased, and she does not stand by with an anxious frown, brightly and carefully talking about other things while I adjust my crutches and lower myself out of the pony carriage. “Sallie and Martyn are rolling the tennis lawn. Isn’t it energetic of them on such a lovely day? Let’s sit in the shade.” There is a big beech tree on Mary’s lawn, and we sat under it and watched the tiny little stream that runs at the bottom of the garden. The sound of it, more than any other sound I know, always recalls to me the summer days of childhood. Presently I consulted Mary about the theatricals and the assignment of the parts.