seats by an upward sweep of the choirmaster's arms--the chorus rose, as
birds rise, and carried on the strain.

It was not a very fine composition, but this final chorus had the
singular charm of fugue. And as the voices mourned like doves, "Oh that
I had wings!" and pursued each other with the plaintive passage, "Then
would I flee away--then would I flee away----," Jack's ears knew no
weariness of the repetition. It was strangely like watching the rising
and falling of Daddy Darwin's pigeons, as they tossed themselves by
turns upon their homeward flight.

After the fashion of the piece and period, the chorus was repeated, and
the singers rose to supreme effort. The choirmaster's hands flashed
hither and thither, controlling, inspiring, directing. He sang among the
tenors.

Jack's voice nearly choked him with longing to sing too. Could words of
man go more deeply home to a young heart caged within workhouse walls?

"Oh that I had wings like a dove! Then would I flee away--" the
choirmaster's white hands were fluttering downwards in the dusk, and the
chorus sank with them--"flee away and be at rest!"



SCENE IV.


Jack March had a busy little brain, and his nature was not of the limp
type that sits down with a grief. That most memorable tea-party had