She rose because Mrs. Shaw had risen and was looking for her parasol and shaking out her plumes. But why did Mr. Fitzroy and Mrs. Shaw both stare at her in an unvarnished surprise, touched with ridicule on the lady's side? "No, no, Mrs. Stewart, that won't do!" cried he, in obvious dismay. At the same moment Mrs. Shaw ejaculated, ironically: "That's very brave of you Mildred! I thought you hated music and were never going to try to sing again." She and Fitzroy had both been present on an occasion when Mildred, urged on by Milly's musical reputation, had committed herself to an experiment in song which had not been successful. "Thank you very much," Mrs. Shaw went on, "for offering to change, but of course Lady Wolvercote must arrange things as she likes; and, to speak frankly, I'm not particularly sorry to give the acting up, as my husband was rather upset at my not being able to go to Switzerland with him on the 28th. No, please don't trouble; I can let myself out. Good-bye, Lady Wolvercote; I hope the fair and the theatricals will be a great success. Good-bye, Mr. Fitzroy, good-bye." Lady Wolvercote's faint remonstrances were drowned in the adieus, and Mrs. Shaw sailed out with flying colors, while Milly sank back abjectly into the seat from which she had risen. Every minute she was realizing with a more awful clearness that she, whose one appearance on the stage had been short and disastrous, was cast to play the leading part in a public play before a large and brilliant audience. She hardly heard Fitzroy's bitter remarks on Mrs. Shaw--not forgetting Jim Morrison--or Lady Wolvercote exclaiming in a voice almost dreamy with amazement: "Really it's too extraordinary!" "I'm very sorry Mrs. Shaw won't take the part," said Milly, clasping and unclasping her slender fingers, "for I know I can't do it myself." Fitzroy was protesting, but she forced herself to continue: "You don't know what I'm like when I'm nervous. When we had _tableaux vivants_ at Ascham I was supposed to be Charlotte putting a wreath on Werther's urn, and I trembled so much that I knocked the urn down. It was only card-board, so it didn't break, but every one laughed and the tableau was spoiled." Fitzroy and his aunt cried out that that was nothing, a first appearance; any one could see she had got over that now. Pale, with terrified eyes, she looked from one to the other of her tormentors, who continued to sing the praises of her past prowess on the boards and to foretell the unprecedented harvest of laurels she would reap at Besselsfield. The higher their enthusiasm rose, the more profound became her dejection. There seemed no loop-hole for escape, unless the earth would open and swallow her, which however much to be desired was hardly to be expected.