Annie Kilburn

"Yes," said Mrs. Munger, with deep concern.

Mr. Brandreth looked very unhappy. "It's an embarrassing point. We can't

change the play, and so the difficulty must be met and disposed of at

once."

He did not look at either of the ladies, but Mrs. Munger referred the

matter to Annie with a glance of impartiality. His mother also turned her

eyes upon Annie. "Percy thought that you must have seen so much of amateur

dramatics in Europe that you could tell him just how to do."

"Perhaps you could consult Miss Northwick herself," said Annie dryly, after

a moment of indignation, and another of amusement.

"I thought of that," said Mrs. Brandreth; "but as Percy's to be Romeo--You

see he wishes the play to be a success artistically; but if it's to succeed

socially, he must have Miss Northwick, and she might resign at the first

suggestion of--"

"Bessie Chapley would certainly have been better. She's so outspoken you

could have put the case right to her," said Mrs. Munger.

"Yes," said Mr. Brandreth gloomily.

"But we shall find out a way. Why, you can settle it at rehearsal!"

"Perhaps at rehearsal," said Mr. Brandreth, with a pensive absence of mind.

Mrs. Munger crushed his hand and his mother's in her leathern grasp, and

took Annie away with her. "It isn't lunch-time yet," she explained, when

they were out of earshot, "but I saw she was simply killing you, and so I

made the excuse. She has no mercy. There's time enough for you to make your

calls before lunch, and then you can come home with me."

Annie suggested that this would not do after refusing Mrs. Brandreth.

"Why, it would never have done to _accept_!" Mrs. Munger cried. "They

didn't dream of it!" At the next place she said: "This is the Clevingers'.

_They're_ some of our all-the-year-round people too." She opened the

door without ringing, and let herself noisily in. "This is the way we run

in, without ceremony, everywhere. It's quite one family. That's the charm

of the place. We expect to take each other as we find them."

Her freedom did not find the ladies off their guard anywhere. At all the

houses there was a skurrying of feet and a flashing of skirts out of the

room or up the stairs, and there was an interval for a thorough study of

the features of the room before the hostess came in, with the effect of

coming in just as she was. She had naturally always made some change in

her dress, and Annie felt that she had not really liked being run in upon.

Everywhere they talked to her about the theatricals; and they talked across

her to Mrs. Munger, about one another, pretty freely.