Augusta had dwelt with dreamy pleasure upon the idea of herself as the fair and frail Amy Robsart to John Neville's Leicester, or as the devoted Queen Eleanor sucking the poison from the arm of her gallant spouse, also John Neville, though in kingly guise. And Hermione had had her erratic kittenish dream too! She had dreamt. of playing Margaret to John Neville's Faust, and Lady Teazle in the screen scene to his Charles Surface! John Neville said, when these fond dreams were blushingly confided to him, "Ye Gods!"-but he said it to himself, of course; "I really don't think it would do to have serious things like those," he said, gravely. Hermie "-yes, he had got to Miss Hermie vivants we are getting up-it's wax-works. works anything like popular, you must have them funny, what will make people laugh. Now if we were to do a whole set of nursery rhymes anything like well we shall get the same people over and over again."

"You see, Miss "it isn't tableau.c And to have wax

Miss Hermione caught at the idea with avidity, for there was a delicious flavour of excessive juvenility about nursery rhymes, such as tickled her kittenish palate delightfully. "Nursery rhymes," she exclaimed, clapping her hands gaily; "oh! that would be fun--and so out of the common. But, tell me, Mr. Neville, what rhymes would you do?"

"There's 'Hey, diddle, diddle," began John Neville rather vaguely, "and Sing a song of sixpence'-but I'll get a book with them all in, and then we can pick them out to please ourselves."

Eventually they decided on six nursery rhymes, and the programme was drawn up as follows:

"The old woman who lived in a shoe." Scene from "Sing a Song of Sixpence." Scene from "Little Bo-Peep." "Little Jack Horner." Scene from "The Queen of Hearts." Scene from

"Simple Simon."

To follow these was the miscellaneous collection of pieces lumped together under the heading of " Mrs. Jarley's Wax-works," and among them were these groups:

"Blue Beard and Fatima."

"Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup.”

"The Swiss Peasant."

"Little Red Riding-Hood."

"Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh."

"The Captain of the Vulture.'"

"Group of Shakers," consisting of two persons; and "a most effective and elegant group of a wounded soldier, army surgeon in attendance and Red-cross Sister of Charity."

Now this last idea had emanated entirely from John Neville, who was, you will remember, to take the part of Mrs. Jarley; but on my conscience I do believe that it was not one which had

actually originated with him, but that it had been put into his mind by that enemy of mankind who had his abode within him during that time. For to the intense astonishment of everybody who knew him, he had persuaded the surgeon-major in charge of that district, a jovial old bachelor, devoted to whist and not unacquainted with the gout, not only to join in the ranks of the waxworkers, but actually to undertake the part of the wounded soldier, who would lie on his back on a hard wooden platform, with only a thin, a very thin mattress to keep his sixteen stones of tender flesh and blood from the hard boards; who would have to submit to have his head bandaged and his arm arranged to express severe wounds, to open his mouth at intervals and take imaginary nourishment out of an empty spoon, to roll his eyes and move his head to and fro, and generally, as John Neville put it, make a consummate ass of himself.

The question of the hour, among those who knew the fact, was-"How did he do it?" But if John Neville had tried to tell any one how he had got Dr. Farren to do it, he would have found himself with a difficult task, for he did not know-he only knew that, in what he supposed to be a weak moment, the doctor had promised, and that he meant to keep him to his word.

CHAPTER IV.

STERNE'S STARLING.

THE great day had come at last, and the first performance of the waxworks was in full swing.

It happened that the schools adjoined the Vicarage grounds, so the wax-works were given in the largest of the rooms, all the seats for several performances having been bought up several days previously. And at this, the first, all the rank and fashion of the neighbourhood were present, watching with interest and applauding with a genuine enthusiasm such as left no doubt of the success of the entertainment.

On the whole "the girls" from Jesmond Cottage took a very fair share in the display-Augusta, as "the old woman who lived in a shoe," birched several children in an exceedingly wooden and jointed fashion. Hermione, as "the Queen was in the parlour," ate bread and honey with much the same studied grace; she also, as Bo-Peep, waved a crook to and fro with one hand, and carried her apron stiffly to her eyes with the other-while Augusta, as the Queen of Hearts, rolled paste until such of the company as knew what cooking was, laughed heartily to think a knave could be so silly as to believe the tarts to be made of it could be worth stealing.

And then Mrs. Jarley herself stepped forward, and the work of

arranging the final scene began. That energetic old lady was but a few minutes in putting the principal figures into place. Each was brought in by two stout men and trundled into his or her proper position. Blue Beard stood at one end of the group facing Fatima, who gazed before her with the unmeaning stare of— of wax. The Swiss Peasant came just behind Fatima, and good Queen Bess and Sir Walter Raleigh were put at the other end of the platform. Close to them came Red Riding-Hood and the Captain of the "Vulture," and on a low chair in front of them sat Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup, with a baby on one arm and a bottle in the other hand. In the background of the middle of the space thus left were put the two Shakers, and on the floor at their feet was arranged the group of which Dr. Farren was the central figure.

It was on this group that all eyes were fixed from the moment the Doctor was trundled in, until Mrs. Jarley was ready to begin her explanations and the work of screwing up the figures began; and surely, never did a more miserable-looking patient have surgeon and Sister attending him than this poor old wounded soldier, for he lay on his thin mattress looking the picture of abject wretchedness, which he was, with Fleming as the surgeon feeling his pulse and Hermione kneeling beside him with a spoon in one hand and a handkerchief in the other, with one of which she was to feed him at intervals and with the other she was to wipe his clammy brow, or as much of it as was visible below the bandages.

Mrs. Jarley began: "Ladies and gentlemen, I am now going to show you my collection of wax-works, unrivalled in the world's history. James, wind up the figures; Blue Beard first. You have all heard of Blue Beard, ladies and gentlemen, and all the 'orrid deeds he perpetrated? That's a long time ago, and he is now a re-formed character——” Here Blue Beard, by three jerks of his head, bowed to his spouse, who shook her head from side to side in an aggravating sort of way, which would have driven the old autocrat into a frenzy. "You see, ladies and gentlemen, Blue Beard's asking a favour of Fatima and Fatima says, 'No, she won't 'ave it at any price, and so he need say no more about it.'"

So Mrs. Jarley, otherwise John Neville, wandered on through the story of Blue Beard, through the antics of the Swiss Peasant and over the old tale of Little Red Riding-Hood, into a long yarn about the Shakers and their interesting and singular ways, and then touching upon the history of the buccaneer Captain of the "Vulture" and the pretty story of gallant Sir Walter laying his cloak over a puddle that the termagant Bess might not soil her shoe. This brought him to Mrs. Winslow, and he entered upon a long dissertation on soothing syrups and babies in general, while all the time the stout old doctor was lying in an agony of cramp,