rence to the fact that she had never achieved what she had
expected.

The play was one of those drawing-room concoctions in which charmingly
overdressed ladies and gentlemen suffer the pangs of love and jealousy
amid gilded surroundings. Such bon-mots are ever enticing to those who
have all their days longed for such material surroundings and have never
had them gratified. They have the charm of showing suffering under ideal
conditions. Who would not grieve upon a gilded chair? Who would not
suffer amid perfumed tapestries, cushioned furniture, and liveried
servants? Grief under such circumstances becomes an enticing thing.
Carrie longed to be of it. She wanted to take her sufferings, whatever
they were, in such a world, or failing that, at least to simulate them
under such charming conditions upon the stage. So affected was her
mind by what she had seen, that the play now seemed an extraordinarily
beautiful thing. She was soon lost in the world it represented, and
wished that she might never return. Between the acts she studied the
galaxy of matinee attendants in front rows and boxes, and conceived a
new idea of the possibilities of New York. She was sure she had not seen
it all--that the city was one whirl of pleasure and delight.

Going out, the same Broadway taught her a sharper lesson. The scene she
had witnessed coming down was now augmented and at its height. Such
a crush of finery and folly she had never seen. It clinched her
convictions concerning her state. She had not lived, could not lay claim
to having lived, until something of this had come into her own life.
Women were spending money like water; she could see that in every
elegant shop she passed. Flowers, candy, jewelry, seemed the principal
things in which the elegant dames were interested. And she--she had
scarcely enough pin money to indulge in such outings as this a few times
a month.

That night the pretty little flat seemed a commonplace thing. It was not
what the rest of the world was enjoying. She saw the servant working at
dinner with an indifferent eye. In her mind were running scenes of the
play. Particularly she remembered one beautiful actress--the sweetheart
who had been wooed and won. The grace of this woman had won Carrie's
heart. Her dresses had been all that art could suggest, her sufferings
had been so real. The anguish which she had portrayed Carrie could feel.
It was done as she was sure she could do it. There were places in which