follows another; the band suggests and the young musicians take it up with a will. Just now they had been a pelting of the pit with orange peel--all in good fun, of course. The lads in their shirt sleeves had whistled and screamed, and saluted friends in distant corners of the gallery; but now all this horse play is quieted by music and melody. It is Boxing Night, and there must be patriotism as well as pleasure. 'Rule Britannia,' 'God bless the Prince of Wales,' and 'God Save the Queen,' are sung from thousands of lusty throats, and all the audience rise to their feet, waving hats and handkerchiefs. Loyalty is as necessary as love at Christmas-time. And what has that good old wizard Blanchard prepared for the happy children? He must be as immortal as Father Christmas, and certainly is quite as popular. He will be the guide up the rocks of romance, and away to the fields of fairyland. He will lead his happy followers amidst ogres and giants and elves and fays, to wizard castles and enchanted dells; now you will be at the bottom of the sea, where lovely queens wave sea-weed wands; and now on land amidst the yellow corn-fields and the bluebell lanes. There will be song and dance, and the madcap pranks of thousands of children, liliputian armies and glittering armor, poetry and processions, hobby-horses and the dear old Clown and Harlequin and Pantaloon supporting 'airy fairy' Columbine, if they would only ring that prompter's bell and pull up that tantalizing curtain. The noise is hushed, the music stops, the overture is over--but wait.