Girl's arms full of flowers, which the management had with kindly
forethought prepared for the prima donna, but which that delightful
young person and the delighted leader of the orchestra had passed over
to the little girl.

"Well," gasped Miss Broughten, as she came up to Van Bibber laughing,
and with one hand on her side and breathing very quickly, "will you
kindly tell me who is the leading woman now? Am I the prima donna, or
am I not? I wasn't in it, was I?"

"You were not," said Van Bibber.

He turned from the pretty prima donna and hunted up the wardrobe
woman, and told her he wanted to meet the Littlest Girl. And the
wardrobe woman, who was fluttering wildly about, and as delighted as
though they were all her own children, told him to come into the
property-room, where the children were, and which had been changed
into a dressing-room that they might be by themselves. The six little
girls were in six different states of dishabille, but they were too
little to mind that, and Van Bibber was too polite to observe it.

"This is the little girl, sir," said the wardrobe woman, excitedly,
proud at being the means of bringing together two such prominent
people. "Her name is Madeline. Speak to the gentleman, Madeline; he
wants to tell you what a great big hit youse made."

The little girl was seated on one of the cushions of a double throne
so high from the ground that the young woman who was pulling off the
child's silk stockings and putting woollen ones on in their place did
so without stooping. The young woman looked at Van Bibber and nodded