se move, Joan wondered rather vaguely, as she packed away her
few possessions. There was a great deal in Fanny's nature that she
disapproved of, that could at times even fill her with disgust. In
itself, that would merely hold her from ever coming to look at life from
Fanny's standpoint. And perhaps she would find in the existence, which
Fanny claimed to be full of love and laughter, something to satisfy the
dull aching discontent which had wrenched at her heart all this last
summer. Aunt Janet, Uncle John, the old home-life, the atmosphere of
love and admiration, these had been torn from her, she needed something
to take their place.

They met the rest of the company next day at the station. Fanny
introduced them all to Joan, rather breathlessly.

"Mr. Strachan, who plays our hero, and who is the idol of the stalls.
Mr. O'Malley, our comic man. Mr. Whistler, who does heavy father parts,
wig and all. Mr. Jimmy Rolls, who dances on light toes and who prompts
when nothing else is doing. The ladies, honey, take their names on
trust, you will find them out sooner or later."

There were, Joan discovered, eight other ladies in the company. She
never knew more than four of them. Mrs. O'Malley, Grace Binning, a small
soft-voiced girl, Rhoda Tompkins, and Rose Weyland--a very
golden-haired, dark-eyebrowed lady, who had been in some far back
period, so Fanny contrived to whisper, a flame of Brown's.

Of the men, Joan liked Mr. Strachan best; he was an ugly man with very
pleasant eyes and a rare smile that lit up the whole of his face. He
seemed quiet, she thought, and rather apart from the others.

The journey down to Tonbridge proved slightly disastrous. To begin with,
thanks to Daddy Brown himself, the company missed the best train of the
day and had to travel by one that meant two changes. On arrival at
Tonbridge at four o'clock in the afternoon they found that one of the
stage property boxes had gone astray. Considering that they were billed
to appear that evening at eight and the next train did not arrive till
ten-thirty, the prospect was not a promising one.

"Always merry and bright," as Jimmie, the stage prompter, remarked in an
aside to Strachan. "By the way, is it the _Arcadians_ that we are doing
to-night?"

"How the hell can we do anything," growled Daddy Brown, the patch of
skin round his danger-mark showed alarmingly red, "if that box does not
appear. Who was the blasted idiot who was supposed to be looking a