think you ought to do that, Ju," Connie began gravely.
But Julia, with sudden angry tears in her eyes, stopped her.

"I've _not_ done anything!" she said crossly. And suddenly Connie saw the
truth: that Julia, in spite of paint and powder, rings and "clubbed"
hair, was only a little girl, after all, still unsexed, still young
enough to resent being teased about boys.

"What's he do?" she asked presently.

"Well, he--he--I have supper with them sometimes"--Julia's words poured
out eagerly--"and he'll kiss me, you know--"

"_Kiss_ you! The nerve!"

"Oh, before them all, I mean--like he always has done. His mother just
laughs. And then, last week, when he asked me to go to Morosco's with
them, why, it was just us two--the others had gone somewhere else."

"Well, of all gall!" said Connie, absorbed.

"And I've been up there with him thousands of times," said Julia. "Maybe
Hannah'd be there, or Sophy, but sometimes we'd be alone--while he was
playing the piano, you know."

"Well, now you look-a-here, Julie," said Connie impressively, "you cut
out that being alone business, and the kissing, too. And now how about
to-night? Are you sure his whole family is going to-night?"

"Well, that's just it, I'm not," Julia confessed, flattered by Connie's
interest.

"Then you don't go one step, my dear; just you fool him a bunch! You see
you're like a little boy, Ju: kisses don't mean nothing to you, _yet_. But
you'll get a crush some day yourself, and then you'll feel like a fool
if you've got mixed up with the wrong one--see?"

"Sure," said Julia, hoarse and embarrassed. Yet she liked the sensation
of being scolded by Connie, too, and tried shyly, as the conversation
seemed inclined to veer toward Connie's own affairs, to bring it back to
her own.

The little matter of the corsets being settled, they sauntered through
the always diverting streets toward the office of Leopold Artheris,
manager of the Grand Opera House, and a very good friend of both girls.

They found him idle, in a bright, untidy office, lined with the pictures
of stage favourites, and with three windows open to the sun and air.

"You're placed, I think, Miss Girard?" said he, giving her a fat little
puffy hand. He was a stout, short man of fifty, with a bald spot showing
under a mop of graying curls, and a bushy moustache also streaked with
gray.

"If you call it placed," said Connie, grinning. "We open Monday in
Sacramento."

"Aha! But why Sacram