e late sat about half-clothed reading, crocheting
or sewing, while others added pencilled eyebrows, powder or rouge to
their already exaggerated "make-ups." Here and there a child was putting
her sawdust baby to sleep in the till of her trunk, before beginning
her part in the evening's entertainment. Young and old went about their
duties with a systematic, business-like air, and even the little knot
of excited women near Polly--it seemed that one of the men had upset a
circus tradition--kept a sharp lookout for their "turns."

"What do you think about it, Polly?" asked a handsome brunette, as she
surveyed herself in the costume of a Roman charioteer.

"About what?" asked Polly vacantly.

"Leave Poll alone; she's in one of her trances!" called a motherly,
good-natured woman whose trunk stood next to Polly's, and whose business
was to support a son and three daughters upon stalwart shoulders, both
figuratively and literally.

"Well, _I_ ain't in any trance," answered the dark girl, "and _I_ think
it's pretty tough for him to take up with a rank outsider, and expect
us to warm up to her as though he'd married one of our own folks." She
tossed her head, the pride of class distinction welling high in her
ample bosom.

"He ain't asking us to warm up to her," contradicted Mademoiselle
Eloise, a pale, light-haired sprite, who had arrived late and was making
undignified efforts to get out of her clothes by way of her head. She
was Polly's understudy and next in line for the star place in the bill.

"Well, Barker has put her into the 'Leap of Death' stunt, ain't he?"
continued the brunette. "'Course that ain't a regular circus act,"
she added, somewhat mollified, "and so far she's had to dress with
the 'freaks,' but the next thing we know, he'll be ringin' her in on a
regular stunt and be puttin' her in to dress with US."

"No danger of that," sneered the blonde; "Barker is too old a stager to
mix up his sheep and his goats."

Polly had again lost the thread of the conversation. Her mind had
gone roving to the night when the frightened girl about whom they
were talking had made her first appearance in the circus lot, clinging
timidly to the hand of the man who had just made her his wife. Her eyes
had met Polly's, with a look of appeal that had gone straight to the
child's simple heart.

A few nights later the newcomer had allowed herself to be strapped into
the cumbersome "Leap of Death" machine which hurled itself thro