and
the better I understood the requirements of the part, the greater became
my terror of it. My room-mate tried to comfort me. "Think," she cried,
"of wearing one of Miss St. Clair's own dresses! I'll wager it will be an
awful nice one, too, since you are obliging her, and she is always kind,
anyway."

But that leaden weight at my heart was too great for gratified vanity to
lift. "Bother the tears," she added; "I heard Mr. Barras say the tears of
all actresses were in their handkerchiefs."

"Oh, yes, I heard him, too," I answered, "but he was just talking for
effect. There must be something else, something more. You can't move
anyone's heart by showing a handkerchief."

"Well," she exclaimed, a bit impatiently, "what do you _want_ to do? You
don't expect to shed real tears, do you?"

"N-n-no!" I hesitated, "not exactly that, but there's a tone--a--Hattie,
last Wednesday, when you quarrelled with young Fleming--I was not
present, you know--but that night, a half-hour after our light was out,
you spoke to me in the darkness, and I instantly asked you why you were
crying and if you had been quarrelling, though you had not even reached
the sobbing stage yet. Now how did I know you were crying?"

"I don't know--anyway I had no handkerchief," she laughed; "you heard it
maybe in my voice."

"Yes," I answered, eagerly, "that was it. That curious veiling of the
voice. Oh, Hattie, if I could only get that tone, but I can't, I've tried
and tried!"

"Why," she exclaimed, "you've got it now--this very moment!"

"Yes," I broke in impatiently, and turning to her a pair of reproachful,
tear-filled eyes, "yes, but why? because I'm really crying, with the
worry and the disappointment, and, oh, Hattie, the fright!"

And the landlady, a person who always lost one shoe when coming
up-stairs, announced dinner, and I shuddered and turned my face away.
Hattie went down, however, and bringing all her blandishments to bear
upon the head of the establishment, secured for me a cup of coffee--that
being my staff in all times of trouble or of need, and then we were off
to the theatre, Hattie kindly keeping at my side for companionship or
help, as need might be.

I did not appear in the first act, so I had plenty of time to receive my
borrowed finery--to try it on, and then to dress in my own white muslin,
ready for my first attempt at a crying part. It was a moonlit scene. Miss
St. Clair, tall, slender, elegant, looked the young French