ed about her as bees about their queen.

She was in high spirits all through the luncheon, and Douglass was
carried out of his dark gravity by her splendid vitality, her humor, and
her hopefulness.

"All you need is a hearing," she said. "And you shall have that. Oh, but
there is a wilderness of work before us! Can you design the scenes? I
like to do that. It's like playing with doll-houses. I'll show you how.
We'll leave the financial side of it to you, Hugh," she said, to her
brother. "Come, Mr. Playwright," and they set to work with paste and
card-board like a couple of children, and soon had models of all the
sets. They seemed childish things indeed, but Helen was mistress of even
the mechanical side of the stage, and these paste-pot sketches were of
the greatest value to the scene-painter and the carpenter.

V

These three weeks of rehearsal formed the happiest time Douglass had
ever known, for all things conspired to make each day brim with mingled
work and worship. First of all, and above all, he was permitted to meet
Helen each day, and for hours each day, without fear of gossip and
without seeking for an excuse.

Each morning, a little before ten, he left his room and went directly to
the theatre to meet the company and the manager. The star, prompt as a
clock, arrived soon after, and Douglass, beforehand, as a lover, was
always there to help her from her carriage and to lead the way through
the dark passage to the stage, where the pompous little Saunders was
forever marshalling his uneasy vassals in joyous exercise of
sovereignty.

Helen was happy as a child during these days, and glowing with new ideas
of "business" and stage-setting. "We will spare no work and no expense,"
she said, buoyantly, to Mr. Westervelt, her manager. "We have a drama
worthy of us. I want every one of Mr. Douglass's ideas carried out."

The manager did not know, as Douglass did, that some of the ideas were
her own, and so took a melancholy view of every innovation.

"You can't do that," he gloomily repeated. "The public won't stand for
new things. They want the old scenes rehashed. The public don't want to
think; it wants to laugh. This story is all right for a book, but won't
do for a play. I don't see why you quit a good thing for a risk like
this. It is foolish and will lose money," he added, as a climax.

"Croak, you old raven--you'll be embarrassed when we fill your
money-box," she replied, gayly. "You should ha