boxes was laden with
flowers. When its occupants entered, the orchestra played the national
anthem and the audience rose to their feet. It was the Prince with the
Princess and their daughters. The audience was only less distinguished,
and something far off and elusive moved in her memory when a lady handed
her a check and said in a sweet voice:

"A gentleman will come for this seat."

Glory's station was in the stalls, and she did not go out when the lights
went down and the curtain rose. The play was a modern one--the story of a
country girl who returned home after a life of bitterness and shame.

It moved her and thrilled her, and stirred the smouldering fires of her
ambition. She was sorry for the actress who played the part--the poor
thing did not understand--and she would have given worlds to pour her own
voice through the girl's mouth. Then she was conscious that she was
making a noise with her hands, and looking down at them she saw the
crumpled programmes and her white cuffs, and remembered where she was,
and what, and she murmured, "O God, do not punish me for these vain
thoughts!"

All at once a light shot across her face as she stood in the darkness.
The door of the corridor had been opened, and a gentleman was coming in.
He stood a moment beside her with his eyes on the stage and said in a
whisper:

"Did a lady leave a seat?"

It was Drake! She felt as if she would suffocate, but answered in a
strained voice:

"Yes, that one. Programme, please."

He took the programme without looking at her, put his fingers into his
waistcoat pocket, and slid something into her hand. It was sixpence.

She could have screamed. The humiliation was too abject. Hurrying out,
she threw down her papers, put on her cloak and hat and fled.

But next morning she laughed at herself, and when she took out Drake's
sixpence she laughed again. With the poker and a nail she drove a hole
through the coin and then hung it up by a string to a hook over the
mantelpiece, and laughed (and cried a little) every time she looked at
it. Life was so funny! Why did people bury themselves before they were
dead? She wouldn't do it for worlds! But she did not go back to the
theatre for all that, and neither did she return to the counter.

Christmas was near, the shops became bright and gay, and she remembered
what beautiful presents she had meant to send home out of the money she
had hoped to earn. On Christmas Eve the streets were thronged