middle of the stage, with her back close to the footlights, clenching her hands and biting her under lip. She had a pale, wan face, and looked as if she had Lived, so I asked George who she was; but at first he didn't tell me. I think he wanted to let me guess. I did afterward, too. There was a red-haired man, bald on top, sitting near her, and George said he was the stage director, and that in the happy, care-free days of old he would have had something to do with putting on the play, but now we had changed all that. Every body else was sitting, except two women who were reading to each other in a hesitating way, like Minims over a primer lesson. Before they had read much the wan-faced lady said:

"Let's cut all that out; it isn't needed." So the women who had been reading sat down and scratched out whole typewritten pages with little pencils. I asked George what the pages were, and he said they had been "parts," but were now as the snows of yesteryear, whatever he meant by that. Other men and women got up and read things from typewritten sheets of paper. Sometimes they read alone and sometimes to one another, and once or twice they crossed the stage or went to an imaginary window or something. One man had grim and terrible

lines, but he read them like a lost lamb bleating. It didn't matter, for as soon as anybody read anything the wan-faced lady said, "Let's cut that out," and the red-haired man, bald on top, did it.

I was getting interested by this time, for I knew now that each man and woman was a member of the company, and that the typewritten sheets contained their speeches in the play, and that the reason they had read them so slowly and without any feeling was because they hadn't had time to learn them yet. I asked George if the wan lady wasn't the star, and he said she was, and that my intuition was wonderful. I was interested in her then, of course, and I studied her long and earnestly. I told George she looked as if she had drunk deep from the cup of life, and George said she had, and all the indications were that she would swallow the cup, too, before she got through, unless it was chained to the pump. Some day I'm going to make a special study of George's language, and write out what it means. That will surprise him! Now I haven't time. Besides, I don't always know myself. I asked him when the rehearsal was going to begin, though, and when he told me I grasped his meaning.

He said it had begun now, and that when the star and her little meat-chopper

got through with it, there would be a quick change from a four-act comedy to a four-act monologue. Of course I know what a monologue is, so I decided he meant that the other actors weren't going to have any lines left. He did mean that, too. Every member of the company read long, thrilling speeches, and then cut them down to three or four words, with the heroine's name in them. The leading man had a perfectly beautiful speech, about a crisis in his life, but when the star got through cutting it, all he had to say was, "Here comes Isabel." Isabel was the star's name, in the play.

The girl George said was the ingénue had five lovely paragraphs to say in the first act, all about the missing will and where her uncle had placed it; but when the star had cut her part, the only words she had left were, ""Tis Isabel." I was sorry for the ingénue, and she seemed dreadfully sorry for herself, but the star said it didn't matter, because she could get all that about the will into one of her own speeches.

At last a very serious woman, quite old, got up from a chair beside us and went to the middle of the stage and read in terribly gloomy tones that she wondered if Master would be home for dinner. The red-haired man, bald on top, jumped at her. "Put some ginger into that," he yelled. 66 Come in with a hop, skip, and jump."

He took his coat tails in his hands and did it for her, and Kittie and I laughed till we cried, which was a serious error, for he wasn't trying to be funny at all. He was just showing her how to be graceful. The woman said she hoped he would excuse her, but in the play she was a faithful old family servant, of sixty-eight or so. She didn't know she had to dance in, especially as she had a very tragic scene in the third act that didn't go with dancing servants at all. The star spoke right off, biting her lip and clenching her hands harder than ever. I never saw anybody who acted so nervous-not even Kittie James when she is in the infirmary.

"Let's cut all that out," the star said. "I don't see any need of the scene."

So they cut it out, and a big blond man rushed in and caught the star to his breast and called her his darling. Kittie and I were getting excited now, for it really looked as if they were going to

rehearse at last; but the star drew herself coldly from his embrace, and said she simply wouldn't have him act the scene that way, because he would kill it if he did. The man sat down and mopped his forehead.

"My God, Miss Jones," he said, "I'm your husband in this play, and I haven't seen you for two years. You appear unexpectedly at a crisis in my life, and it seems to me that my lines call for some big acting. I can't accept you as if you were a dish of potatoes offered me at dinner, can I?”

The star began to say that she thought his scene ought to be cut out, anyhow, but George Morgan rose and addressed us in grim, incisive tones, as real writers would say:

"Come on, girls," he said. "Let's go. I invited you to a rehearsal, not to an abattoir. I won't sadden your young lives any longer."

We were not exactly sad, but we saw that he was, and Kittie and I were not sorry to go. It had all been so different from what we expected. We thought there would be a brilliantly lighted stage and beautiful costumes and a thrilling play, with us as the only audience. And here we had been watching people sit around and shiver in their overcoats and jackets, and ever and anon rise and say, "But Isabel comes," or, "Wait for Isabel." They didn't have to wait for Isabel very long. She was always coming; or if she was going we knew she would be right back. The star didn't take the trouble to read her own lines, but she was holding a fat book just bursting with long speeches, and ever and anon she wrote in some more. Sometimes she wrote in lines taken from other parts, and sometimes she wrote in lines she happened to think of. When she did that she would read it to the red-haired man, bald on top, and he would laugh if it was funny or drop a silent tear if it was sad. Of course that's just my beautiful way of making you understand. He didn't really drop the tear, but you could see he wanted to. It gave me a queer feeling to see her writing things in the author's play. It was like seeing a purse stolen, or a baby slapped, or some other low act. I told George Morgan this, when we got out into the cement alley again, and he look

I remembered them again when George heard my play that night and asked me to give him a solemn, sacred promise that I would not attend a rehearsal of it if it was ever produced. He said he could not bear the thought of my anguish if I did. I promised, and George looked lots more cheerful. Little did I wot, though, how soon I would be called upon to live up to my thoughtless words.

The very first hour I got back to St. Katharine's, Mabel Blossom and Maudie came to see me. They had formed a Dramatic Club, and wanted to produce my play. They said they would put it into rehearsal at once, and they had elected Mabel Muriel Murphy manager, so her rich father would send lots of scenery and beautiful costumes. They said they were going to let Mabel Muriel play the leading part, too, and that Maudie would be the lover and Mabel Blossom the funny man. They had made all these plans without asking me, and lots more besides. They talked so fast, and had so much to say, that I couldn't

VOL. CXXIII.-No. 733.-4

get my breath for a minute. When I did I said there was, alas! one terrible obstacle. I had given my solemn word to George Morgan not to go to any rehearsals of my play, and I must keep it. Then I waited for them to groan and sink into chairs and say, "All is lost," but they didn't. They looked at each other, and their faces shone like the twin electric lights over the great gate leading into the convent grounds. They were so excited that Maudie forgot to be tactful. She hugged me hard and said it was just lovely that I had promised, because Mabel Muriel wouldn't be manager and star unless she had what she called 66 a free hand."

"That means that she wants to do the whole thing," Maudie said, "and she thinks you would interrupt and interfere if you were there. She said she wouldn't be stage-manager or star unless you promised not to come to rehearsals."

You'd better believe that hurt my feelings. But one of my rules of life is never to let any one know she is doing

this, so of course I couldn't show it. I said I would think it over, and I went off and roamed by the river's brim, and wondered why folks were born, anyhow, and had to live, when life was so grim and terrible. Nature looked just the way I felt. The river was frozen over, and the ground was covered with snow, and I couldn't see a living thing anywhere. It was awfully lonely, but kind of quieting, too, and by and by I began to feel better. I realized first of all that, even if the girls wanted me dreadfully, I simply couldn't go to my rehearsals, so what was the use of fussing? Then I remembered that it was my play they wanted to produce, not theirs, and this was a compliment, even if they hadn't finished any of theirs and couldn't. Finally, all of a sudden, I thought of a good end for my third act, and when that came, of course I was so happy I didn't care about anything else; for, as any Artist knows, Art is enough, and the life that holds it needs naught else. It's lucky it doesn't, too, for, young as I am, I have oft observed that it doesn't usually get much else.

I went back to the convent with springing steps, and as soon as the girls saw me they knew all was well, and they came running. When I am happy over my Art my dear companions seem like shadow girls, and they know it. So they were not surprised when I told them briefly they could have the play, but I didn't want to talk any, because I had to finish it right off. They were grateful and tactful, and walked silently by my side to the door of my room, and left me there with reverence. I went in and finished the play. It was simply beautiful. Every single character was killed off before I got through, and they all died young, too. I cried quarts over that play. The next morning I gave it to the girls, and that's the last I knew about it till I attended the performance, one Saturday afternoon, in the small study hall.

Since I wrote that last line I've sat for a long time with my chin in my hand, wondering if I could describe that performance. Now I know I can't. First of all, I would have to dip my pen in my heart's blood, and there wouldn't be

enough of that to write it all, and where would I get any more? So I'll just tell what Mabel Muriel Murphy did to my play, and then the reader can vainly try to imagine how he would feel if he had written the play.

First of all, she had made my fouract tragedy into a three-act comedy.

You would think that would be change enough to satisfy anybody, wouldn't you? But it wasn't enough to satisfy Mabel Muriel Murphy.

She had put the fourth act first. She had put the second act last. She had written the third act over, and changed all my characters and situations.

When the time came for a character to die, she had made her dance instead. She had cut out all the parts, except her own-yards and yards of them-just like the lady star in Chicago.

She had put in all the scenes she liked best from her own play.

She had let Maudie Joyce and Mabel Blossom put in all their favorite scenes from their play.

I

The only reason knew they were playing my play was that the title was the same, and my name was under it.

I stayed and watched that play till it was almost finished. I didn't want to, but my legs wouldn't carry me out; they felt like paper things, and wobbled under me, and I was cold

all over. Sometimes the audience there were forty girls in the audience-clapped and turned and looked at me, and nodded as if they liked the play; but I stared straight ahead, with glassy eyes. thought I was dreaming a perfectly terrible dream. Toward the end I found I could get up, and I did; and I crept out of the room and flew along the hall and out of the building and across the campus, and on and on, till I reached my favorite birch-trees by the river. The ground was covered with snow, but I lay

right down flat and put my face into it and melted yards and yards of it-of the snow, I mean; not of my face. And I dug my fingers down through the snow against the hard ground and groaned. I wanted to die, but I knew I couldn't.

It was Sister Irmingarde herself who came and found me hours later, and put her arm around me in the dearest way, and led me to the infirmary and saw that I had a hot bath and hot lemonade. She talked to me beautifully, too, and said things she had never said to me before, about my possibilities and what I could make of my character if I tried; and there was no twinkle in her beautiful eyes-only kindness and sorrow for me. She wanted me to forgive Mabel Muriel

and the other girls, but I couldn't do it yet; I told her that when I was an old, old woman I would try to.

I don't remember much about the next few days. I could just speak politely to the girls, and that was all. I couldn't be friendly, though I tried because Sister Irmingarde

SHE WANTED ME TO FORGIVE MABEL AND THE OTHER GIRLS