into the wings. They were crowded on 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