on through the
curtain--for most of the turns were acquainted with each other: very
affable before each other's faces, very sniffy behind each other's
backs.

Poor Alvina was in a state of bewilderment. She was extremely
nice--oh, much too nice with the female turns. They treated her with
a sort of off-hand friendliness, and they snubbed and patronized her
and were a little spiteful with her because Mr. May treated her with
attention and deference. She felt bewildered, a little excited, and
as if she was not herself.

The first evening actually came. Her father had produced a pink
crepe de Chine blouse and a back-comb massed with brilliants--both
of which she refused to wear. She stuck to her black blouse and
black shirt, and her simple hair-dressing. Mr. May said "Of cauce!
She wasn't intended to attract attention to herself." Miss Pinnegar
actually walked down the hill with her, and began to cry when she
saw the ox-blood red erection, with its gas-flares in front. It was
the first time she had seen it. She went on with Alvina to the
little stage door at the back, and up the steps into the scrap of
dressing-room. But she fled out again from the sight of Miss Poppy
in her yellow hair and green knickers with green-lace frills. Poor
Miss Pinnegar! She stood outside on the trodden grass behind the
Band of Hope, and really cried. Luckily she had put a veil on.

She went valiantly round to the front entrance, and climbed the
steps. The crowd was just coming. There was James's face peeping
inside the little ticket-window.

"One!" he said officially, pushing out the ticket. And then he
recognized her. "Oh," he said, "_You're_ not going to pay."

"Yes I am," she said, and she left her fourpence, and James's
coppery, grimy fingers scooped it in, as the youth behind Miss
Pinnegar shoved her forward.

"Arf way down, fourpenny," said the man at the door, poking her in
the direction of Mr. May, who wanted to put her in the red velvet.
But she marched down one of the pews, and took her seat.

The place was crowded with a whooping, whistling, excited audience.
The curtain was down. James had let it out to his fellow tradesmen,
and it represented a patchwork of local adverts. There was a fat
porker and a fat pork-pie, and the pig was saying: "You all know
where to find me. Inside the crust at Frank Churchill's, Knarborough
Road, Woodhouse." Round about the name of W. H. Johnson floated a
bowler hat, a collar-and-necktie, a pa