Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/152

114 to everybody except the right person, and I shall bear the agony all the better if we have a dress-rehearsal beforehand!"

"My part in the play being, apparently, that of the sample wrong person?"

"Well, no," Arthur said musingly, as we set forth: "there's no such part in a regular company. 'Heavy Father'? That won't do: that's filled already. 'Singing Chambermaid'? Well, the 'First Lady' doubles that part. 'Comic Old Man'? You're not comic enough. After all, I'm afraid there's no part for you but the 'Well-dressed Villain:Villain': [sic] only," with a critical side-glance, "I'm a leetle uncertain about the dress!"

We found Lady Muriel alone, the Earl having gone out to make a call, and at once resumed old terms of intimacy, in the shady arbour where the tea-things seemed to be always waiting. The only novelty in the arrangements (one which Lady Muriel seemed to regard as entirely a matter of course), was that two of the chairs were placed quite close together, side by side. Strange to say, I was not invited to occupy either of them!