Laydon looked at Francie. "Miss Smythe, won't you come, too?" He had made a rapid calculation. Yes, it would cost only so much,--they would go in of course on the street car,--and in order to ask one he would have to ask all. Yes, Francie would go, though she was sorry that it was Shakespeare, and just caught herself in time from saying so. "It will be lovely," she said, instead, unemotionally. Miss Bedford supplied the lacking enthusiasm. "It will be the treat of the winter! Oh, the Balcony Scene, and where she drinks the sleeping-draught, and the tomb--" She moved nearer Laydon as she spoke and managed to convey to him, _sotto voce_, "You mustn't be extravagant, you generous man! Don't think that you have to ask these girls just because they are in the room." But she was too late; Laydon was already asking. "Miss Goldwell, won't you come, too, to see 'Romeo and Juliet'?" If she didn't have a headache, Miss Goldwell would be glad to,--"Thank you, Mr. Laydon." "Miss Ashendyne, won't you?" "Yes, thank you." "I will go at once," said Laydon, "and get the tickets." In the end, Lily Goldwell went, and Francie Smythe did not. Francie developed a sore throat that put Mrs. Lane in terror of tonsillitis. Nothing must go wrong--nobody must get ill while dear Mrs. LeGrand was away!--it would be madness for Francie to go out. Where "what Mrs. LeGrand might think" came into it, Mrs. Lane was adamant. Francie sullenly stayed at home. Lily, for a marvel, didn't have a headache, and she said she would take her menthol pencil, in case the music should bring on one. The four walked down the avenue, beneath the whispering trees. There was no moon, but the stars shone bright, and it was not cold. Mr. Laydon and Miss Bedford went a little in front, and Lily and Hagar followed. They passed through the big gate and, walking down the road a little way, came to where the road became a street, and, at ten minutes' interval, a street-car jingled up, reversed, and jingled back to town again. On the street-car Miss Bedford and Mr. Laydon were again together, and Lily and Hagar. Between the two pairs stretched a row of men, several with the evening newspaper. It was too warm in the car, and Lily, murmuring something, took out her menthol pencil. Hagar studied the score of occupants, and the row of advertisements, and the dark night without the windows. The man next her had a newspaper, and now he began to talk to an older man beside him. "The country's doing pretty well, seems to me." The other grunted. "Isn't anything doing pretty well. I'm getting to be a Populist." "Oh, go away! Are you going to the World's Fair?" "No. There's going to be the biggest panic yet in this country about one year from now." "Oh, cheer up! You've been living on Homestead." "If I have, it's poor living." Across the aisle a woman was talking about the famine in Russia. "We are going to try to get up a bazaar and make a little money to send to get food with. Tolstoy--"