The bear was made to go through all his tricks and his
soldier drill.
The children in the audience stood on tiptoe in their eagerness to see
the great animal perform, and were so wild in their applause that the
boys begged to be allowed to take it in front of the curtain every time
during the evening when there was a long pause while some tableau was
being prepared.
Over the rustle of fluttering programmes and the hum of conversation
that followed the first number, there fell presently the soft, sweet
notes of the professor's violin, and Miss Bond's musical voice began the
story of the Vision of Sir Launfal.
"My golden spurs now bring to me,
And bring to me my richest mail,
For to-morrow I go over land and sea
In search of the Holy Grail."
Here the curtains were drawn apart to show Malcolm seated on his pony as
Sir Launfal, "in his gilded mail that flamed so bright." It was really
a beautiful picture he made, and his grandmother, leaning forward, her
face beaming with pride at the boy's noble bearing, compared him with
Arthur himself, "with lance in rest, from spur to plume a star of
tournament,"
The next tableau showed him spurning the leper at his gate, and turning
away in disgust from the beggar who "seemed the one blot on the summer
morn." How Miss Bond's voice rang out when "the leper raised not the
gold from the dust.
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