miracle-plays. You mustn't, Margaret, let Mr.
Henderson prejudice you against the country."

"No," said the latter, quickly; "I was only trying to defend the city.
We country people always do that. We must base our theatrical life on
something in nature."

"What is the difference, Mr. Henderson," asked Margaret, "between the
gossip in the boxes and the country gossip you spoke of?"

"In toleration mainly, and lack of exact knowledge. It is here rather
cynical persiflage, not concentrated public opinion."

"I don't follow you," said Morgan. "It seems to me that in the city
you've got gossip plus the stage."

"That is to say, we have the world."

"I don't like to believe that," said Margaret, seriously--"your
definition of the world."

"You make me see that it was a poor jest," he said, rising to go.
"By-the-way, we have a friend of yours in our box tonight--a young
Englishman."

"Oh, Mr. Lyon. We were all delighted with him. Such a transparent,
genuine nature!"

"Tell him," said my wife, "that we should be happy to see him at our
hotel."

When Henderson came back to his box Carmen did not look up, but she
said, indifferently: "What, so soon? But your absence has made one
person thoroughly miserable. Mr. Lyon has not taken his eyes off you. I
never saw such an international attachment."

"What more could I do for Miss Eschelle than to leave her in such
company?"

"I beg your pardon," said Lyon. "Miss Eschelle must believe that I
thoroughly appreciate Mr. Henderson's self-sacrifice. If I occasionally
looked over where he was, I assure you it was in pity."

"You are both altogether too self-sacrificing," the beauty replied,
turning to Henderson a look that was sweetly forgiving. "They who sin
much shall be forgiven much, you know."

"That leaves me," Mr. Lyon answered, with a laugh, "as you say over
here, out in the cold, for I have passed a too happy evening to feel
like a transgressor."

"The sins of omission are the worst sort," she retorted.

"You see what you must do to be forgiven," Henderson said to Lyon, with
that good-natured smile that was so potent to smooth away sharpness.

"I fear I can never do enough to qualify myself." And he also laughed.

"You never will," Carmen answered, but she accompanied the doubt with a
witching smile that denied it.

"What is all this about forgiveness?" asked Mrs. Eschelle, turning to
them from regarding the stage.

"Oh, we were having an experience meet