do that!"
And women, at least, can understand how my very soul was comforted by the
knowledge. And just then a curious sense of joy seemed to bubble up in my
heart. The sudden relief, the feeling of irresponsibility, the
first-night excitement. Perhaps one, perhaps all together caused it. I
don't know--I only know that meaning no disrespect, no irreverence, I
could have sung aloud from the Benedicite: "_Omnia opera Domini!_" "Bless
ye the Lord: praise him and magnify him forever!"

And the audience accepted the joyous little maid almost from the first
girlish, love-betraying words she spoke, and yet--so sensitive is an
audience at times--while still laughing over her sweet ignorance, they
thrilled with a nameless dread of coming evil. They seemed to see the
blue sky darkening, the threatening clouds piling up silently behind the
white-robed child, whose perfect innocence left her so alone! Before the
first act ended we discovered that the tragedy was shifting from the
sinful mother and was settling down with crushing weight upon the
shoulders of the stainless child. Indeed, the whole play was like a
dramatization of the awful words: "The sins of the fathers shall be
visited upon the children!"

As the play went on and the impetuous grief of the child changed into
proud self-restraint, while her agonizing jealousy of her adored mother
developed, Mr. Daly, with wide, bright eyes, exclaimed: "I must have been
blind--stone-blind! Why _Alixe_ is the bone and marrow, the heart and
soul of this play!"

Certainly the audience seemed to share his belief, for it called and
called and called again for that misunderstood young person, in addition
to the hearty approval bestowed upon the other more prominent characters.
It was a very fine cast, Miss Fanny Morant making a stately and powerful
_Comtesse de Somerive_, while Mr. Louis James gave a performance of the
_Duc de Mirandol_ that I never saw even approached again. Every other
actor made of him either a fool or a brute, while James made of him a
delightful enigma--a sort of well-bred simpleton, rattle-brain, and
braggart, who at the last moment shows himself, beneath all disguise, a
brave and loyal gentleman.

But the greatest triumph for _Alixe_ followed in that act--the last--in
which she does not speak at all. She had been able to bear loss, sorrow,
renunciation, but as in olden times poison-tests were kept, crystal cups
of such rare purity they shattered under contact wi