gloomy. Helen cut the luncheon for
a ride in the park, which did them good, for the wind was keen and
inspiriting and the landscape wintry white and blue and gold. She
succeeded in provoking her playwright to a smile now and then by some
audacious sally against the sombre silence of her cavaliers.

They halted for half an hour in the upper park while she called the
squirrels to her and fed them from her own hands--those wonderful hands
that had so often lured with jewels and threatened with steel. No one
seeing this refined, sweet woman in tasteful furs would have related her
with the _Gismonda_ and _Istar_, but Douglass thrilled with sudden
accession of confidence. "How beautiful she will be as _Enid_!" he
thought, as, with a squirrel on her shoulder, she turned with shining
face to softly call: "This is David. Isn't he a dear?"

She waited until the keen-eyed rascals had taken her last nut, then
slowly returned to the carriage side. "I like to win animals like that.
It thrills my heart to have them set their fearless little feet on my
arm."

Hugh uttered a warning. "You want to be careful how you handle them;
they bite like demons."

"Oh, now, don't spoil it!" she exclaimed. "I'm sure they know me and
trust me."

Douglass was moved to their defence, and strove during the remainder of
the ride to add to Helen's pleasure; and this effort on his part made
her eyes shine with joy--a joy almost pathetic in its intensity.

As they parted at the door of his hotel he said: "If you do not succeed
this time I will utterly despair of the public. I know how sweet you
will be as _Enid_. They must bow down before you as I do."

"I will give my best powers to this--be sure nothing will be neglected
at rehearsal."

"I know you will," he answered, feelingly.

She was better than her promise, laboring tirelessly in the effort to
embody through her company the poetry, the charm, which lay even in the
smaller roles of the play. That one so big and brusque as Douglass
should be able to define so many and such fugitive feminine emotions was
a constant source of wonder and delight to her. The discovery gave her
trust and confidence in him, and to her admiration of his power was
added something which stole into her mind like music, causing foolish
dreams and moments of reckless exaltation wherein she asked herself
whether to be a great actress was not, after all, a thing of less profit
than to be a wife and mother.

She saw muc