the theatre, were swathed to the eyes in furs. The spume and froth
froze on the bits of the horses, and the carriage wheels crunching
through the dry, frozen snow gave off a shrill staccato whine. Yet
for all this, a crowd had collected about the awning on the
sidewalk, and even upon the opposite side of the street, peeping and
peering from behind the broad shoulders of policemen--a crowd of
miserables, shivering in rags and tattered comforters, who found,
nevertheless, an unexplainable satisfaction in watching this
prolonged defile of millionaires.

So great was the concourse of teams, that two blocks distant from
the theatre they were obliged to fall into line, advancing only at
intervals, and from door to door of the carriages thus immobilised
ran a score of young men, their arms encumbered with pamphlets,
shouting: "Score books, score books and librettos; score books with
photographs of all the artists."

However, in the vestibule the press was thinning out. It was
understood that the overture had begun. Other people who were
waiting like Laura and her sister had been joined by their friends
and had gone inside. Laura, for whom this opera night had been an
event, a thing desired and anticipated with all the eagerness of a
girl who had lived for twenty-two years in a second-class town of
central Massachusetts, was in great distress. She had never seen
Grand Opera, she would not have missed a note, and now she was in a
fair way to lose the whole overture.

"Oh, dear," she cried. "Isn't it too bad. I can't imagine why they
don't come."