The company had come from Cleveland, and there were the usual slight
delays attendant on a first night; but the house was "good"; the star
(Mr. Buchanan) was making a fine impression, and the play was evidently
a "go." The big picture was looked forward to eagerly, and when it was
arranged, we had to admit that the pale, pinched little face of the
strange child was more effective as it rested on the dog's shoulder than
had been the plump, smiling face of the manager's little one. The
curtain went up, the applause followed; those behind the scenes crowded
to the "wings" to look on; no one noted that the hands of the clock
stood at 9.40; no one heard through the second burst of applause the
slam of the stage door behind the very, very small person who entered,
and silently peering this way and that, found her stern, avenging way to
the stage, and that too-favoured sister basking in the sunlight of
public approval.

The grandsire had just lifted his head and was about to deliver his
beautiful speech of trust and hope, when he was stricken helpless by the
entrance upon the stage of a boldly advancing small person of most
amazing appearance. Her thin little legs emerged from the shortest of
skirts, while her small body was well pinned up in a great blanket
shawl, the point of which trailed fully a quarter of a yard on the floor
behind her. She wore a woman's hood on her head, and from its cavernous
depth, where there gleamed a pale, malignant small face, a voice
issued--the far-reaching voice of a child--that triumphantly
commanded:--

"You, Mary Ann, yu're ter get up out of that an' com' home straight
away--an' yu're ter go ter bed, too,--mother says so!" and the small
Nemesis turned on her heel and trailed off the stage, followed by
laughter that seemed fairly to shake the building. Nor was that all. No
sooner had Mary Ann grasped the full meaning of this dread message than
she turned over on her face, and scrambling up by all fours, she eluded
the restraining hands of the actress-mother and made a hasty exit to
perfect shrieks of laughter and storms of applause; while the climax was
only reached when the dog, trained to lie still so long as the pressure
of the child's head was upon his shoulder, finding himself free, rose,
shook himself violently, and trotted off, waving his tail pleasantly as
he went.

That finished it; the curtain had to fall, a short overture was played,
and the curtain rose again without the co