Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/250

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THE BOSS OF LITTLE ARCADY

if to say, "One can't tell what may occur in a place where that is permitted!" And her performance was not observed by myself alone. Marcella saw it and sped to her brother, who, after listening to hurried words from her, dashed into "The Lost Chord" with a swift and desperate fervor, as if to allay all alarm in the mind of this sensitive guest. Eustace was at heart as earnestly well meaning as any Eubanks that ever lived, and his vagaries in song were attributable solely to a trusting nature capriciously endowed with a dash of the artistic temperament. It was only a dash, however. Beyond doubt, had his family but known, he could have sung the "Bedouin Love Song," and been none the worse for it.

If Miss Caroline's eloquent pantomime at this time aroused a suspicion that she had been maligned, as to her habits of drink, her behavior on a subsequent evening, when Mrs. Judge Robinson entertained, left no one to doubt it. There was music, too, on this occasion—described elsewhere as "a gala occasion"—after Eustace had concluded his part of the entertainment and gotten his lantern out of the way,—music by a quartet consisting of Messrs. Fancett and Eubanks, first and second bass, and Messrs. Updyke and G. Brown, first and second tenor. In excellent accord these tenors and basses, so blameless in their living, lifted up their voices and sang they "would that the wavelets of ocean were wavelets of sparkling champagne!" It was a blithe and rippling morceau