ch money-lender and
the young dude with her was an ex-Governor's son, a silly fool that
everybody said would have been in jail long ago for some of his scrapes
but for his father's influence. John didn't really know who all of them
were, though they lived in the town. They had grown up so fast and he
had been so busy that he hadn't kept track of them. He did know,
however, that they all belonged to a select dancing-club up the street,
and they would go there after the show, no doubt. They felt that they
were better than the working-class, and John said he despised them for
it. Their people belonged to the leading churches and that accounted for
their lack of sympathy for the poor.

There were some improvised boxes or tiers of seats inclosed in scarlet
ribbons on the right, which were marked, "Reserved Seats, 25 cents
extra." The young society people had not taken them, for some reason or
other, but, on the contrary, had found places in the body of the little
amphitheater where they sat merrily eating roasted peanuts which were
bought from a loud-shouting vender with a basket on his arm.

It was all new to the young country wife, and she would have enjoyed it
but for the grim tragedy unfolding in her experience. The music stopped,
and the curtains were drawn. Two amusing Irishmen held the stage for
fifteen minutes in a heated colloquy interspersed with songs and "horse
play." Then when they had withdrawn, and Tilly and John were looking
over the audience, a man and a woman entered, came down the wide
saw-dust aisle, and turned into the reserved section. The man was very
fat, short, and flashily dressed; the woman was also showily attired,
powdered, painted, penciled, and perfumed.

"Oh, my! Old Liz is on a splurge to-night, ain't she?" a man behind John
and Tilly said, with a giggle. "Who's the fellow with her?"

"'Sh!" his companion hissed, warningly, and from the corner of her eye
Tilly saw him pointing at John. She looked at her husband and saw a
wincing look of chagrin settling on his face. He had given but a single
glance at the new-comers and now gazed fixedly at the crude
drop-curtain. Tilly saw his neck and the side of his face growing red.

Could it be her mother-in-law? she asked. Undoubtedly, and her escort
was "Roly-poly," for Dora's description had fitted him perfectly.

Another act was on the stage. Acrobatic performers in silken tights
began vaulting, climbing, balancing one upon the other. Tilly saw