both sides of the stage with the members of the
company; the girls were tiptoeing, with their hands on the shoulders of
the men, and making futile little leaps into the air to get a better
view, and others were resting on one knee that those behind might see
over their shoulders. There were over a dozen children before the
footlights, with the prima donna in the centre. She was singing the
verses of a song, and they were following her movements, and joining in
the chorus with high piping voices. They seemed entirely too much at
home and too self-conscious: to please Van Bibber; but there was one
exception. The one exception was the smallest of them, a very, very
little girl, with long auburn hair and black eyes; such a very little
girl that every one in the house looked at her first, and then looked
at no one else. She was apparently as unconcerned to all about her,
excepting the pretty prima donna, as though she were by a piano at home
practising a singing lesson. She seemed to think it was some new sort
of a game. When the prima donna raised her arms, the child raised
hers; when the prima donna courtesied, she stumbled into one, and
straightened herself just in time to get the curls out of her eyes, and
to see that the prima donna was laughing at her, and to smile
cheerfully back as if to say, "WE are doing our best anyway, aren't
we?" She had big, gentle eyes and two wonderful dimples, and in the
excitement of the dancing and the singing her eyes laughed and flashed,
and the dimples deepened and disappeared and reappeared again. She was
as happy and innocent looking as though it were nine in the morning and
she were playing school at a kindergarten. From all over the house the
women were murmuring their delight, and the men were laughing and
pulling their mustaches and nudging each other to "look at the littlest
one."

The girls in the wings were rapturous in their enthusiasm, and were
calling her absurdly extravagant titles of endearment, and making so
much noise that Kripps stopped grinning at her from the entrance, and
looked back over his shoulder as he looked when he threatened fines and
calls for early rehearsal. And when she had finished finally, and the
prima donna and the children ran off together, there was a roar from
the house that went to Lester's head like wine, and seemed to leap
clear across the footlights and drag the children back again.

"That settles it!" cried Lester, in a suppressed