baby.'

With a start he comes back from the reverie into which he had sunk and
answers at random 'Yes, she always acts perfectly--'

Philippa looks at him in astonishment, how could that child _always_ act
perfectly when it couldn't be more than three, but she says nothing and
watches with interest the play. It is a sad piece of a woman wronged,
the acting is splendid and more than once Miss Seaton feels a lump in
her throat, but it is over at length and the curtain falls for the last
time.

'Did you like it?' asks Ponsonby, helping her on with her cloak.

'Very much,' she replies, 'I have never been to an English theatre
before, you know, but it was awfully sad.'

'Sadder if it had been the man wronged,' he says--

Philippa looks up with a laughing retort about each one for himself, but
he seems so very grave that she refrains and wonders why he said that,
but it is sometime before she finds out.




CHAPTER II

'A face in a crowd, a glance, a droop of the lashes,
and all is said.'--MARION CRAWFORD.