asked Hope if she knew a comic song of which he had only heard by
reputation. One of the men at the mines had gained a certain
celebrity by claiming to have heard it in the States, but as he
gave a completely new set of words to the tune of the ``Wearing
of the Green'' as the true version, his veracity was doubted.
Hope said she knew it, of course, and they all went into the
drawing-room, where the men grouped themselves about the piano.
It was a night they remembered long afterward. Hope sat at the
piano protesting and laughing, but singing the songs of which the
new-comers had become so weary, but which the three men heard
open-eyed, and hailed with shouts of pleasure. The others
enjoyed them and their delight, as though they were people in a
play expressing themselves in this extravagant manner for
their entertainment, until they understood how poverty-stricken
their lives had been and that they were not only enjoying the
music for itself, but because it was characteristic of all that
they had left behind them. It was pathetic to hear them boast of
having read of a certain song in such a paper, and of the fact
that they knew the plot of a late comic opera and the names of
those who had played in it, and that it had or had not been
acceptable to the New York public.

``Dear me,'' Hope would cry, looking over her shoulder with a
despairing glance at her sister and father, ``they don't even
know `Tommy Atkins'!''

It was a very happy evening for them all, foreshadowing, as it
did, a continuation of just such evenings. Young Langham was
radiant with pleasure at the good account which Clay had given of
him to his father, and Mr. Langham was gratified, and proud of