th the art and the fire born in them: those who must come to the stage
and who ought to and who do. It isn't because we want to be 'looked at'
that we go on the stage and starve to stay there! It's because we want
to make pictures--to make pictures of characters in plays for people
in audiences. It's like being a sculptor or painter; only we paint and
model with ourselves--and we're different from sculptors and painters
because they do their work in quiet studios, while we do ours under
the tension of great crowds watching every stroke we make--and, oh, the
exhilaration when they show us we make the right stroke!"

"Bravo!" he said. "Bravo!"

"Isn't it the greatest of all the arts? Isn't it?" she went on with the
same glowing eagerness. "We feed our nerves to it, and our lives to it,
and are glad! It makes us different from other people. But what of
that? Don't we give ourselves? Don't we live and die just to make
these pictures for the world? Oughtn't the world to be thankful for us?
Oughtn't it? Oh, it is, Mr. Canby; it is thankful for us; and I, for
one, never forget that a Prime Minister of England was proud to warm
Davy Garrick's breeches at the grate for him!"

She clapped her hands together in a gesture of such spirit and fire that
Canby could have thrown his hat in the air and cheered, she had lifted
him so clear of his timidity.

"Bravo!" he cried again. "Bravo!"

At that she blushed. "What a little goose I am!" she cried. "Playing the
orator! Mr. Canby, you mustn't mind--"

"I won't!"

"It's because I'm so happy," she explained--to his way of thinking,
divinely. "I'm so happy I just pour out everything. I want to sing every
minute. You see, it seemed such a long while that I was waiting for my
chance. Some of us wait forever, Mr. Canby, and I was so afraid mine
might never come. If it hadn't come now it might never have come. If
I'd missed this one, I might never have had another. It frightens me to
think of it--and I oughtn't to be thinking of it! I ought to be spending
all my time on my knees thanking God that old Mr. Packer got it into his
head that 'The Little Minister' was a play about the Baptists!"

"I don't see--"

"If he hadn't," she said, "I wouldn't be here!"

"God bless old Mr. Packer!"

"I hope you mean it, Mr. Canby." She blushed again, because there was
no possible doubt that he meant it. "It seems a miracle to me that I am
here, and that my chance is here with me, at last. It's twi