Mr.Marrable secured the services of a respectable professional person to drill the young ladies and gentlemen, and to accept all the other responsibilities incidental to creating a dramatic world out of a domestic chaos.

Having further accustomed themselves to the breaking of furniture and the staining of walls--to thumping, tumbling, hammering, and screaming; to doors always banging, and to footsteps perpetually running up and down stairs--the nominal master and mistress of the house fondly believed that their chief troubles were over.

Innocent and fatal delusion! It is one thing in private society to set up the stage and choose the play--it is another thing altogether to find the actors.

Hitherto, only the small preliminary annoyances proper to the occasion had shown themselves at Evergreen Lodge.

The sound and serious troubles were all to come.
"The Rivals" having been chosen as the play, Miss Marrable, as a matter of course, appropriated to herself the part of "Lydia Languish." One of her favored swains next secured "Captain Absolute," and another laid violent hands on "Sir Lucius O'Trigger." These two were followed by an accommodating spinster relative, who accepted the heavy dramatic responsibility of "Mrs.Malaprop"-- and there the theatrical proceedings came to a pause.