The wardrobe woman, unused to such a sympathetic listener, would have lingered indefinitely had not a boy handed Nance a box which absorbed all her attention. "Miss Birdie La Rue," was inscribed on one side of the card that dangled from it on a silver cord, and on the other was scribbled, "Monte and I will wait for you after the show. Bring another girl. M.D.C." "And I'm the other girl!" Nance told herself rapturously. There was a flurry in the wings above and the chorus overflowed down the stairs. "It's a capacity house," gasped Birdie, "but a regular cold-storage plant. We never got but one round. Spagetti is having spasms." "What's a round?" demanded Nance, but nobody had time to enlighten her. It was not until the end of the second act that her name was called, and she went scampering up the stairs as fast as her clumsy suit would permit. The stage was set for a forest scene, with gnarled trees and hanging vines and a transparent drop that threw a midnight blue haze over the landscape. "Crawl up on the stump there!" ordered Reeser, attending to half a dozen things at once. "Put you four paws together. Head up! Hold the pose until the gnomes go off. When I blow the whistle, get down and dance. I'll get the will-o'-the-wisps on as quick as I can. Clear the stage everybody! Ready for the curtain? Let her go!" Nance, peering excitedly through the little round holes of her mask, saw the big curtain slowly ascend, revealing only a dazzling row of footlights beyond. Then gradually out of the dusk loomed the vast auditorium with its row after row of dim white faces, reaching back and up, up further than she dared lift her head to see. From down below somewhere sounded the weird tinkle of elfin music, and tiptoeing out from every tree and bush came a green-clad gnome, dancing in stealthy silence in the sleeping forest. Quite unconsciously Nance began to keep time. It was such glorious fun playing at being animals and fairies in the woods at night. Without realizing what she was doing, she dropped into what she used to call in the old sweat-shop days, "dancin' settin' down." A ripple of amusement passed through the audience, and she looked around to see what the gnomes were up to, but they were going off the stage, and the suppressed titter continued. A soft whistle sounded in the wings, and with a furiously beating heart, she slid down from her high stump and ambled down to the footlights. All might have gone well, had not a sudden shaft of white light shot toward her from the balcony opposite, making a white spot around the place she was standing. She got out of it only to find that it followed her, and in the bewilderment of the discovery, she lost her head completely. All her carefully practised steps and poses were utterly forgotten; she could think of nothing but that pursuing light, and her mad desire to get out of it.