Towards the end of winter it was proposed that some _tableaux_ should be exhibited in the town-hall for the benefit of a local charity. The suggestion was hailed with delight, and every one likely to be useful was invited to "talk it over" with Mrs. C----. And talk they did, at such length and with such vivacity, that I wondered how the two stage-managers, Captain H---- and Miss P----, could ever evolve order from such a chaos. The great clatter of tongues in that small room reminded me of an old Scotch nurse of ours, who, being summoned to keep house for a minister cousin, was anxious first to learn how to play the lady and entertain her guests. The cook advised her to listen at the drawing-room door when we had a party: but she quitted her post in disgust, having heard nothing but "a muckle clackit."
At last it was settled that the _tableaux_ were to represent the story of "Beauty and the Beast," "Elizabeth knighting Raleigh," scenes from "Hamlet" and "The Bohemian Girl," an emblematic group of the nations included in the British Empire, surrounded by representatives of the army and navy, and some well-known statues. Assuredly there was variety enough in our programme to suit all tastes!
Our dress rehearsal, held in the old church before mentioned, was more amusing--to the actors, at all events--than the performance itself. The "sides," which looked well enough to those without, proved a delusion and a snare to those within. They were used as dressing-rooms, but their partition from the stage being only partial, and their flooring stopping far short of the front, a great gap was left--a pitfall down which everything tumbled. Their appointments were primitive, consisting of a small looking-glass, a pincushion, and a piece of comb in each room. The "properties" on the ladies' side were an old straw bonnet wreathed with artificial flowers, and a gaudy overskirt; and on that of the gentlemen, two hats, and a pistol and tin mug--which had probably done duty for the "dagger and the bowl," in the last scene of a dreadful tragedy. Some of our amateurs were fortunate enough to get complete costumes made, but others appeared in a fragmentary condition, with a bodice of the time of Elizabeth, and a petticoat of that of Victoria. Sir Walter Raleigh wore the old felt hat belonging to his dressing-room, and pathetically appealed to the spectators to imagine it adorned with a white feather and jewelled clasp.