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312 and put in a good deal of Italian for fear she might be overheard.

“Non cognosce anybody?” she asked. “I tablieri, I mean. And are we all to sit in the aula, while the salone is being got ready?”

“Si,” said Georgie. “There’s a fire. When you go out, keep them there. “I domestichi are making salone ready.”

“Molto bene. Then Peppino and you and I just steal away. La lampa is acting beautifully. We tried it over several times.”

“Everybody’s tummin’,” said Georgie, varying the cipher.

“Me so nervosa!” said Lucia. “Fancy me doing Brunnhilde before singing Brunnhilde. Me can’t bear it.”

Georgie knew that Lucia had been thrilled and delighted to know that Olga so much wanted to come in after dinner and see the tableaux, so he found it quite easy to induce Lucia to nerve herself up to an ordeal so passionately desired. Indeed he himself was hardly less excited at the thought of being King Cophetua.

At that moment, even as the crackers were being handed round, the sound of the carol-singers was heard from outside, and Lucia had to wince, as “Good King Wenceslas” looked out. When the Page and the King sang their speeches, the other voices grew piano, so that the effect was of a solo voice accompanied. When the Page sang, Lucia shuddered.

“That’s the small red-haired boy who nearly deafens me in church,” she whispered to Georgie. “Don’t you hope his voice will crack soon?”