"
"Her speech? Is she going to deliver one here?"
"No, as soon as they go back to town--at the Music Hall."
Ransom's attention was now transferred to his companion. "Is that why
you call it her great effort?"
"Well, so they think it, I believe. She practises that way every night;
she reads portions of it aloud to Miss Chancellor and Miss Birdseye."
"And that's the time you choose for your walk?" Ransom said, smiling.
"Well, it's the time my old lady has least need of me; she's too
absorbed."
Doctor Prance dealt in facts; Ransom had already discovered that; and
some of her facts were very interesting.
"The Music Hall--isn't that your great building?" he asked.
"Well, it's the biggest we've got; it's pretty big, but it isn't so big
as Miss Chancellor's ideas," added Doctor Prance. "She has taken it to
bring out Miss Tarrant before the general public--she has never appeared
that way in Boston--on a great scale. She expects her to make a big
sensation. It will be a great night, and they are preparing for it. They
consider it her real beginning."
"And this is the preparation?" Basil Ransom said.
"Yes; as I say, it's their principal interest."
Ransom listened, and while he listened he meditated. He had thought it
possible Verena's principles might have been shaken by the profession of
faith to which he treated her in New York; but this hardly looked like
it. For some moments Doctor Prance and he stood together in silence.
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