In a breath she was swaying in his encircling arms to the waltz he softly hummed. As they circled the big room and stopped by the window a boy went down the street, whistling high and clear, and simply from the actor-like habit of quoting, Thrall said, with a laugh: "It was the lark--the herald of the morn!" When, like a flash, Sybil, with pretty impatience and obstinacy, made response: "It was the nightingale and _not_ the lark, That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear!" The surprise was so startling that Thrall caught the girl's face between his hands almost roughly, exclaiming: "Why! do you know the lines of Juliet?" And poutingly she answered: "Does not every stage-struck girl know them?" But he frowned: "That's no answer! Be direct in matters of business! Do you or do you not know Juliet's lines?" She was vaguely conscious that she really ought to be angry at the liberty this man was guilty of, but she quailed at the frown and answered, meekly: "Only part of them. I studied up to the potion scene, and there I got frightened and stopped!" "Ah!" he exclaimed; "and may I ask what frightened you?" He released her as he spoke. "Well," she said, with her head a little to one side, as she traced the pattern on the curtain with one slim finger, "well, you see, it was night, and--and Dorrie was asleep--and--there are a good many owls in our trees, and they do hoot and shiver their voices so! And they and the vault and the 'dead men's bones' rather got on my nerves, I suppose, for I only got as far as Tybalt--in his 'festering shroud'--when I was so scared I backed over to the bed and Dorrie! Oh, I didn't dare turn around, you see!" Stewart Thrall fairly shook with laughter, in which this time both Sybil and Polly joined. Then he said at last, not without a touch of sarcasm: "It was not the fear of acting the part that disturbed you, then?" "Oh, no!" she replied with great simplicity. "It's too soon to get frightened about that--ages too soon!" She sighed heavily: "I'm nineteen now, and I suppose I must wait years and years--five at the very least--before I dare even to hope to act Juliet? And then people say no one can play her unless they have loved." "No one can," assented Thrall. "Oh, well, in five years," Sybil responded, hopefully and vaguely. "Yes," thought the man, "in far less than five years, you lovely child, you will have learned to play Juliet!" An old engraving of Mrs. Siddons hung upon the wall, and Sybil stood looking at it. The crown the actress wore well became the high chill beauty of her face. "Queen of the English-speaking stage," murmured Sybil. "How proud and happy she must have been! what love and homage her fame must have won from her countrymen!" Quickly turning her head, she asked: "Mr. Thrall, when you have become famous, do you forget all the bitterness of past struggles and feel like loving the whole world for very joy and gratitude?"