The Argosy — page 155: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

140 OUR AMATEUR CONCERT. “ Pi RANCHES my dear,” said Mr. Smallwood to his wife, ‘‘ there’s terrible distress in the village still, I hear.” ‘““Ah !” sighed the lady addressed, “‘I’m afraid so, John, indeed. Though if every one had given as much as we did, the Thursday Children’s Dinners need not have fallen through, nor yet the Men’s Sunday Breakfasts.” ‘“‘T wish we could afford to give the Rector another fifty,” con- tinued Mr. Smallwood, ‘‘ but I suppose that’s out of the question. We’ve given all we can just now, and they say ‘charity begins at home.’ ” The gentleman quitted the room here, and his wife fell into a musing fit. That evening, when dinner was over and Mr. and Mrs. Smallwood, a middle-aged couple ‘“ without encumbrance,” as the advertisements say, sat in their drawing-room, amidst the numerous guests invited down to Smallwood Hall for the first few weeks of the New Year, the hostess electrified her company by a proposition, which, from her un- usually thoughtful demeanour since the conversation reported above, had evidently been germinating in the worthy lady’s mind for some hours. ‘‘Tadies and Gentlemen,” she began, from her easy chair, raising her closed fan to command attention and drawing the gaze of all the occupants of the room on her at once: ‘I have an appeal to make. The poor people of our village are suffering acutely in various ways, from the privations attendant on this continued hard weather. My husband and I have given all we can afford for their relief, and now I want to call upon you for your contributions.” She paused. Her guests a// looked astonished. Some looked angry. Some simply avoided her eye. Some put their hands in their pockets at once. With a smile she continued, ‘‘ /Vo¢ in money !” Again a change came over the company. ‘The hands moved away from the pockets. The eyes that had bent themselves to the ground were raised again in innocence and frankness. The mouths that had begun to droop, smiled. ‘The contribution that I ask from you is Talent! Of the company now in this room, and staying in this house, almost every one possesses musical talent.” How funny some of the faces began to look now! ‘The charming little musical evenings we enjoy in this drawing- room assure me that we have only to hire the Infants’ School-room of CONMIELICOL KS (EO) m