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CHRISTMAS MORNING.
81

which continued throughout the musical portion of the service. Directly the fiddles were laid down, Mr. Penny's spectacles put in their sheath, and the text had been given out, an indignant whispering began.

'Did ye hear that, souls?' Mr. Penny said in a groaning breath.

‘Brazen-faced hussies!' said Bowman.

‘Trew; why, they were every note as loud as we, fiddles and all, if not louder.'

'Fiddles and all,' echoed Bowman bitterly.

'Shall anything bolder be found than united woman?' Mr. Spinks murmured.

'What I want to know is,' said the tranter (as if he knew already, but that civilisation required the form of words), 'what business people have to tell maidens to sing like that when they don't sit in a gallery, and never have entered one in their lives? That's the question, my sonnies.'

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