Mary Alice found that she liked to hear these people talk. They had a
kind of eagerness about many things that made them all seem to have
much more to say than could possibly be said then and there. Mary
Alice felt just as she thought the lady must have felt who, after the
man standing beside Mary Alice had made one or two remarks, in a brief
turn the conversation took towards the Children's Theatre, cried: "Oh!
I want to talk to you about that." And they moved away somewhere and
sat down together. Then, somehow, from that the general talk glanced
off on to some actors and actresses who had come out of the foreign
quarter where the Children's Theatre was, and were astonishing up-town
folk with the fire and fervour of their art. Some one who seemed to
know a good deal about the speaking voice, commented on the curious
change of tone, from resonant throat sounds to nasal head sounds, which
generally marked the Slav's transition from his native tongue to
English; and gave several examples in such excellent imitation that
every one was amused, even Mary Alice, who knew nothing about the
persons imitated.

Then, some one who had been recently to California and seen Madame
Modjeska and been privileged to hear some chapters of the memoirs she
was writing, told an incident or two from them about the experiences of
that great Polish artiste in learning English. A man asked this lady
if she knew what Modjeska was going to do with her Memoirs when they
were ready for publication; and they two moved away to talk more about
that. And so it went. Mary Alice didn't often know what the talk was
about; but she was so interested in it that she found herself wishing
they would talk more about each thing and wouldn't break up and drift
off the way they did. They had such a wide, wide world--these
people--and they seemed to see everything that went on around them, to
feel everything that can go on within. And they made no effort about