of boyish _sang-froid_.

"We're right cozy for acquaintances of a half hour's standing," she
remarked, at last. "But, then, I've heard about you for so long. You
see, Corny told Beth, and she has--well--mentioned you to me."

"Pooh--that's nothing! I tell you, I've known you for centuries. I
remember that when I heard of one of those theosophist fellows
marrying a girl he'd known for a thousand years or so, I roared. Now I
understand it!" (Very solemnly.)

She did not speak, and he began again with increased seriousness:

"Really, I'm in earnest, you know. I've the most curious sense
of--well, of companionship with you--as if we'd known each other
indefinitely, as if----"

She interrupted rather hastily.

"Honestly?"

Tersely--"Upon my soul."

She rose somewhat hurriedly. "It's going to rain!"

"Never mind. I have a conundrum. Why is love like a mushroom?"

She wrinkled her brow. "Because it's easily crushed, I suppose, and
you're never quite sure of it."

"Wrong. Because it springs up in a night--that is, in an hour," he
answered, impressively.

The drops began to fall softly, swiftly, easily, as if they would
never more be stanched.

"Come," she said, but her cheeks were more richly colored than before.

"Isn't this heavenly?" he murmured, as they vanished down the road in
a blur of rain. She did not answer, but her eyes were shining.

SOME FEMININE STARS

By ALAN DALE

Advertised personalities. Enormous sums squandered on theatrical
impossibilities. Amelia Bingham's pluck and restlessness. "Nancy
Stair" rather tiresome. Lesser lights in star-dom.

Three thin, anaemic, bedraggled plays, each with a heralded, exultant
feminine "star" skewered to its bloodless pulp, dropped into this
metropolis just ahead of the reluctant crocus. Three highly advertised
"personalities" tried to weather out a veritable emaciation of drama,
and the result was, of course, a foregone conclusion. Slowly but
surely is knowledge being forced upon the deluded manager, and he is
learning to appreciate the vital truth of the much battered
Shakespearian quotation, "The play's the thing." No trumped-up
interest in one particular puppet will take the place of the drama
itself. This is a pity. It is easier to create a marionette than it is
to construct a play.

The three highly advertised "personalities" that reached us at crocus
time were owned and engineered by Miss Amelia Bingham, Miss Mary
Mannering a