she could even do better. Hence she repeated the lines to herself. Oh,
if she could only have such a part, how broad would be her life! She,
too, could act appealingly.

When Hurstwood came, Carrie was moody. She was sitting, rocking and
thinking, and did not care to have her enticing imaginations broken in
upon; so she said little or nothing.

"What's the matter, Carrie?" said Hurstwood after a time, noticing her
quiet, almost moody state.

"Nothing," said Carrie. "I don't feel very well tonight."

"Not sick, are you?" he asked, approaching very close.

"Oh, no," she said, almost pettishly, "I just don't feel very good."

"That's too bad," he said, stepping away and adjusting his vest
after his slight bending over. "I was thinking we might go to a show
to-night."

"I don't want to go," said Carrie, annoyed that her fine visions should
have thus been broken into and driven out of her mind. "I've been to the
matinee this afternoon."

"Oh, you have?" said Hurstwood. "What was it?"

"A Gold Mine."

"How was it?"

"Pretty good," said Carrie.

"And you don't want to go again to night?"

"I don't think I do," she said.

Nevertheless, wakened out of her melancholia and called to the dinner
table, she changed her mind. A little food in the stomach does wonders.
She went again, and in so doing temporarily recovered her equanimity.
The great awakening blow had, however, been delivered. As often as she
might recover from these discontented thoughts now, they would occur
again. Time and repetition--ah, the wonder of it! The dropping water and
the solid stone--how utterly it yields at last!

Not long after this matinee experience--perhaps a month--Mrs. Vance
invited Carrie to an evening at the theatre with them. She heard Carrie
say that Hurstwood was not coming home to dinner.

"Why don't you come with us? Don't get dinner for yourself. We're going
down to Sherry's for dinner and then over to the Lyceum. Come along with
us."

"I think I will," answered Carrie.

She began to dress at three o'clock for her departure at half-past
five for the noted dining-room which was then crowding Delmonico's for
position in society. In this dressing Carrie showed the influence of
her association with the dashing Mrs. Vance. She had constantly had her
attention called by the latter to novelties in everything which pertains
to a woman's apparel.

"Are you going to get such and such a hat?" or, "Have you seen the new
gloves