Priscilla spread out the paper of the music and struck the first chord of the accompaniment. At the right moment the singer’s voice came in, and he meandered through the stanza, reaching up for his high note in the repetition of the refrain and taking it easily. There was a considerable amount of applause at this point, and upon that applause Priscilla the pianist had counted, when she ran pleasantly into that very expressive “symphony” which every one knows makes so effective a link from stanza to stanza of “In the Land of Sleep.” The accompaniment was still running along soothingly and dreamily when the vocalist once more took up the theme, and was perfectly well satisfied with his treatment of it until he got to the refrain. Then he became aware of the fact that his voice was rather strained. He felt that he must make an effort to do that high note, and when the moment came, he strained. He did not quite achieve it; every one that had ears to hear knew that he was flat; and he knew it himself. He found it necessary to resist the temptation--for the first time--of holding the note, and he finished the refrain in a hurry. Led by the Bowlby-Suthersts, however, the audience gave some applause to the second stanza; and once again Priscilla was grateful for it. She flashed into the introduction to the third stanza--the showy one, with the high A introduced twice, the second time with a grace-note that adds to its effect. But it soon became plain that the vocalist, if he had never before known what nervousness meant, was quickly learning something of this mystery. It seemed as if his voice was becoming tired, and once there was actually a suggestion of breaking down. But then Mr. Kelton pulled himself together, lifted up his chin, and boldly attacked the refrain. In an instant it became certain that he would never be able to touch the high notes. For some reason or other, which was plain only to Mr. Mozart Tutt and a few other musicians who were present, Mr. Kelton’s voice had lost some notes out of its range. He slurred over the lower notes on the principle of an aeronaut throwing out a sandbag or two, in order that he might get up higher. He went up and up and then made a bold attempt to squeeze out the A by some means. The result sounded like the quivering shriek of a leaky steam whistle. No one, however, knew exactly what it was like, the fact being that its vibrations were drowned by the shrieks of laughter of the school girls in the gallery, and in another instant these infectious sounds had spread to the body of the hall, and there was a whole minute of irrepressible merriment; even the honest attempt made by some of the boys from the grammar school to suggest a natural parallel to Mr. Kelton’s note, failed to restore order; but this was only to be expected, considering that there was a serious difference of opinion among these authorities as to the direction in which the