“So this is the little girl?” he inquired. He drew her to his side and flushed with pleasure. His entire appearance changed. “I had an idea she might be over to the house to-night,” he added, turning to Baron. “No,” said Baron, “she preferred to come with us.” Bonnie May shrank slightly from the stranger’s touch; but after she had regarded him critically she yielded to it. He seemed rather a good sort, she thought. He wasn’t loud, and he didn’t take things for granted too much. But Mrs. Baron stiffened and seemed bent upon bringing upon the entire group that discomfort and embarrassment the creation of which is one of the finer social accomplishments. “Sit down, Bonnie May,” she said. She patted an unoccupied chair with her hand and smiled. There was something in her manner which caused Bonnie May to regard her with surprise. Thornburg, too, observed her rather deliberately. For an instant he seemed to forget himself, to be absent-minded. Thornburg was of that type of man who seems to surrender unconditionally when a woman employs strategies, but who resolves to do what he pleases when her back is turned. Baron resented his mother’s attitude, her decision not to be communicative and gracious. He stood by the manager’s side and spoke of the splendid picture the garden presented. For a moment they stood in silence, looking down upon the tangle of many-colored lights which marked the course of the Midway. The steady stream of people who had been entering the theatre had begun to diminish, and now the notes of the overture arose--the “Poet and Peasant.” Bonnie May sprang to her feet. “There it is,” she said, and both Baron and Thornburg smiled down on her. Then Thornburg escorted the party into the theatre. Baron noted the immense audience, sitting in a blaze of light; a fairly quiet and pleasant-appearing audience. He noted, too, that where one might have expected to find walls at right and left there were vast open spaces, through which stars, beyond waving horizontal branches, were visible. Rolled canvas, which might be let down in case of rain, rattled slightly in the breeze, and one or two disturbed sparrows darted into the place and rested, chirping, on a girder overhead. Then Baron had eyes only for Bonnie May, who had undergone some strange sort of transformation the moment she had entered the theatre. Her eyes were enough to thrill an ordinary world-weary person. Her color became brilliant. Then her body began to respond to some overmastering influence. One might have thought of her as a little palfrey about to enter a great parade with many bands in it. She was not merely proud and happy; she was quite entranced with delight.