perately in love
with Mr. Orlando.

"If any one seized Orlando's trunks, I couldn't appear in public
to-night," said Mr. Blake. "Orlando possesses but one pair of trunks."

"You might wear a mackintosh," suggested Mr. Booth.

"Or borrow trunks of the trees," added Mr. Irving.

"They're off," growled Mr. Jefferson, who hated the puns he did not
make.

"Let's dazzle the town, Cora," said Jackie Blake; and before Tinkletown
could take its second gasp for breath, the leading man and woman were
slowly promenading the chief and only thoroughfare.

"By ginger! she's a purty one, ain't she?" murmured Ed Higgins, sole
clerk at Lamson's. He stood in the doorway until she was out of sight
and remained there for nearly an hour awaiting her return. The men of
Tinkletown took but one look at the pretty young woman, but that one
look was continuous and unbroken.

"If this jay town can turn up enough money to-night to keep us from
stranding, I'll take off my hat to it for ever more," said Jackie Blake.

"Boothby says the house is sold out," said

Miss Marmaduke, a shade of anxiety in her dark eyes. "Oh, how I wish we
were at home again."

"I'd rather starve in New York than feast in the high hills," said he
wistfully. The idols to whom Tinkletown was paying homage were but
human, after all. For two months the Boothby Company had been buffeted
from pillar to post, struggling hard to keep its head above water,
always expecting the crash. The "all-stars" were no more than striving
young Thespians, who were kept playing throughout the heated term with
this uncertain enterprise, solely because necessity was in command of
their destinies. It was not for them to enjoy a summer in ease and
indolence.

"Never mind, dear," said she, turning her green parasol so that it
obstructed the intense but complimentary gaze of no less than a dozen
men; "our luck will change. We won't be barn-storming for ever."

"We've one thing to be thankful for, little woman," said Jackie, his
face brightening. "We go out again this fall in the same company. That's
luck, isn't it? We'll be married as soon as we get back to New York and
we won't have to be separated for a whole season, at least."

"Isn't it dear to think of, Jackie sweetheart? A whole season and then
another, and then all of them after that? Oh, dear, won't it be sweet?"
It was love's young dream for both of them.

"Hello, what's this?" exclaimed Orlando the Thousandth, pausing before a