er for her tears, she met Rodney at the hall door, the boy
making no sign of disappointment when Lydia and Sally joined them.

"But say, Martie," he said at once, "I've got only the two seats!"

"Oh, that's all right!" Lydia said quickly and cautiously. "We don't
have to SIT together!"

Martie's mood brightened and she flushed like a rose when the boy said
eagerly:

"Say, listen, Martie. My sister Ida's going to-night, and one or two
others, and Mrs. Cliff Frost is going to chaperon us afterward; ask
your mother if that's all right."

The girl wasted no time on her mother, but crossed to the library door.

"Pa," said she without preamble, "Mrs. Cliff Frost is chaperoning some
of them after the theatre tonight. Can I go?"

"Go where? Shut that door," her father said, half turning.

"Oh--I don't know; to the hotel, I suppose."

"Yes," her father said in a dry voice. "Yes," he added unwillingly. "Go
ahead."

So the evening was a great success; one of the memorable times. Martie
and Rodney walked ahead of her sisters down town, the boy gallantly
securing the girls' tickets before he and Martie went up the aisle to
their own seats. All Monroe was in the Opera House. Martie bowed and
smiled radiantly. Rodney's sister and Mrs. Frost and a strange man
presently returned her smile.

"Rod--wouldn't you rather be with your own family?"

"Well--what do you think?"

The enchantment of it, the warmth and stimulus of his admiration, his
absorbed companionship, how they changed the world for Martie! There
was a witchery in the air, the blood ran quick in her veins. The dirty
big hall, with its high windows, was fairyland; the whispering crowd,
Rodney's nearness, and the consciousness of her own youth and beauty,
her flushed cheeks and loosened bronze hair, acted upon Martie like
strong wine. She grew lovely beneath his very eyes; she was nineteen,
and she loved!

They talked incessantly, elaborating the simple things they said with a
by-play of eyes and hands, making the insignificant words rich with
lowered tones, with smiles and the meeting of eyes. He told Martie of
his college days; borrowing episodes at random from the lives of other
men, men whom he admired. Martie believed it all, believed that he had
written the Junior Farce, that he had been president of his class, that
the various college societies had disputed for his membership. In
return, she spun her own romances, flinging a veil of attractive
eccentrici