rning
resentment. They had been there only a few moments when two young men
sauntered down the aisle, unmistakably gentlemen, and genuine enough to
express their enjoyment of this glimpse of a theatre between
performances. Two of them carried little paper copies of "The Amazons,"
so Julia knew them for fellow-performers.

Then a third young woman came in and walked down the aisle as the others
had done. This was an extremely pretty girl of perhaps eighteen, with
dark hair and dark bright eyes, and a very fresh bright colour. Her gown
was plain but beautifully fitting, and her wide hat was crowned with a
single long ostrich plume. She peered at the young men.

"Hello, Bobby--hello, Gray!" she said gayly, and then, catching sight of
the two other girls across the aisle, she added: "Oh, hello, Helen--how
do you do, Miss Carson? Come over here and meet Mr. Sumner and Mr.
Babcock!"

Babel ensued. Three or four waiting young people said, "Oh, Barbara!" in
tones of great delight, and the fourth no less eagerly substituted, "Oh,
Miss Toland!"

"How long have you poor, long-suffering catfish been waiting here?"
demanded Miss Barbara Toland, with a sort of easy sweetness that Julia
found instantly enviable. "Why, we're all out in the foyer--Mother's
here, chaperoning away like mad, and nearly all the others! And"--she
whisked a little gold watch into sight--"my dears, it's twenty minutes
to four!"

Every one exclaimed, as they rushed out. Julia, unaccountably nervous,
wished she were well out of this affair, and wondered what she ought to
do.

Presently some twenty-five or thirty well-dressed folk came streaming
back down the main aisle in a wild confusion of laughter and talk.
Somehow the principals were filtered out of this crowd, and somehow they
got on the stage, and got a few lights turned on, and assembled for the
advice of an agitated manager. Dowagers and sympathetic friends settled
in orchestra seats to watch; the rehearsal began.

Julia had strolled up to the stage after the others; now she sat on a
shabby wooden chair that had lost its back, leaned her back against a
piece of scenery, and surveyed the scene with as haughty and indifferent
an air as she could assume.

"And the Sergeant--who takes that?" demanded the manager, a young fellow
of their own class, familiarly addressed as "Matty."

The caste, which had been churning senselessly about him, chorussed an
explanation.

"A professional takes that, Ma