a, that's the thing--you're to be Laura."

"And you can't remember what the part is like?"

"To save me, Cad, I can't," he answered. "I ought to, too; I've seen
the play enough. There's a girl in it that was stolen when she was an
infant--was picked off the street or something--and she's the one that's
hounded by the two old criminals I was telling you about." He stopped
with a mouthful of pie poised on a fork before his face. "She comes very
near getting drowned--no, that's not it. I'll tell you what I'll do," he
concluded hopelessly, "I'll get you the book. I can't remember now for
the life of me."

"Well, I don't know," said Carrie, when he had concluded, her interest
and desire to shine dramatically struggling with her timidity for the
mastery. "I might go if you thought I'd do all right."

"Of course, you'll do," said Drouet, who, in his efforts to enthuse
Carrie, had interested himself. "Do you think I'd come home here and
urge you to do something that I didn't think you would make a success
of? You can act all right. It'll be good for you."

"When must I go?" said Carrie, reflectively.

"The first rehearsal is Friday night. I'll get the part for you
to-night."

"All right," said Carrie resignedly, "I'll do it, but if I make a
failure now it's your fault."

"You won't fail," assured Drouet. "Just act as you do around here. Be
natural. You're all right. I've often thought you'd make a corking good
actress."

"Did you really?" asked Carrie.

"That's right," said the drummer.

He little knew as he went out of the door that night what a secret
flame he had kindled in the bosom of the girl he left behind. Carrie was
possessed of that sympathetic, impressionable nature which, ever in the
most developed form, has been the glory of the drama. She was created
with that passivity of soul which is always the mirror of the active
world. She possessed an innate taste for imitation and no small ability.
Even without practice, she could sometimes restore dramatic situations
she had witnessed by re-creating, before her mirror, the expressions of
the various faces taking part in the scene. She loved to modulate her
voice after the conventional manner of the distressed heroine, and
repeat such pathetic fragments as appealed most to her sympathies. Of
late, seeing the airy grace of the ingenue in several well-constructed
plays, she had been moved to secretly imitate it, and many were the
little movements and expression