s no ill
feeling. Miss Carroll did not agree with him in this, and so she was
relegated to the third place, and another girl who was more
interested in the audience and less in the play took her position.
When Miss Carroll was not on the stage she used to sit on the carpeted
steps of the throne, which were not in use after the opening scene,
and read novels by the Duchess, or knit on a pair of blue woollen
wristlets, which she kept wrapped up in a towel and gave to the
wardrobe woman to hold when she went on. One night there was a quicker
call than usual, owing to Ada Howard's failing to get her usual encore
for her waltz song, and Brady hurried them. The wardrobe woman was not
in sight, so Agnes handed her novel and her knitting to M'Gee and
said: "Will you hold these for me until I come off?" She looked at him
for the first time as she handed him the things, and he felt, as he
had felt several times before, that her beauty was of a distinctly
disturbing quality. There was something so shy about her face when she
was not on the stage, and something so kindly, that he stood holding
the pieces of blue wool, still warm from her hands, without moving
from the position he had held when she gave them to him. When she came
off he gave them back to her and touched the visor of his cap as she
thanked him. One of the other beautiful amazons laughed and whispered,
"Agnes has a mash on the fire laddie," which made the retiring Mr.
M'Gee turn very red. He did not dare to look and see what effect it
had on Miss Carroll. But the next evening he took off his hat to her,
and she said "Good-evening," quite boldly. After that he watched her a
great deal. He thought he did it in such a way that she did not see
him, but that was only because he was a man; for the other women
noticed it at once, and made humorous comments on it when they were in
the dressing-rooms.

Old man Sanders, who had been in the chorus of different comic-opera
companies since he was twenty years old, and who was something of a
pessimist, used to take great pleasure in abusing the other members of
the company to Andy M'Gee, and in telling anecdotes concerning them
which were extremely detrimental to their characters. He could not
find anything good to say of any of them, and M'Gee began to believe
that the stage was a very terrible place indeed. He was more sorry for
this, and he could not at first understand why, until he discovered
that he was very much interested