ghted--she sent me special word just now. So stiffen
your backbone, _Petruchio_, and make this next dialogue with me as rapid
as you know. Come back at me like flash-fire--don't lag a breath--we'll
stir the house to laughter, or know the reason why. Ready?"

Her firm hand on Olivia's arm, her bracing words in Olivia's ear, put
courage back into her temporarily stage-struck "leading man," and Olivia
returned to the charge determined to play up to her teacher without
lagging. In truth, Roberta's actual presence on the stage was proving a
distinct advantage to those of the players who had parts with her. She
warmed and held them to their tasks with the flash of her own eyes, not
to mention an occasional almost imperceptible but pregnant gesture, and
they found themselves somehow able to "forget the audience," as she had
so many times advised them to do, the better that she herself seemed so
completely to have forgotten it.

The work of the young actors grew better with each act, and at the end
of the fourth, when the curtain went down upon a scene which had been
all storm on the part of the players and all laughter on the part of the
audience, the applause was long and hearty. There were calls for the
entire cast, and when they had several times responded there was a
special and persistent demand for _Katherine_ herself, in the character
of the producer of the play. She refused it until she could no longer do
so without discourtesy; then she came before the curtain and said a few
winsome words of gratitude on behalf of her "company."

Ruth, staring up at her sister's face brilliant with the mingled
exertion and emotion of the hour, and thinking her the prettiest picture
there against the great dull-blue silk curtain of the stage she had ever
seen, had no notion that just behind her somebody was thinking the same
thing with a degree of fervour far beyond her own. Richard Kendrick's
heart was thumping vigorously away in his breast as he looked his fill
at the figure before the curtain, secure in the darkness of the house
from observation at the moment.

When he had first met this girl he had told himself that he would soon
know her well, would soon call her by her name. He wondered at himself
that he could possibly have fancied conquest of her so easy. He was not
a whit nearer knowing her, he was obliged to acknowledge, than on that
first day, nor did he see any prospect of getting to know her--beyond a
certain point. Her