went to the house on the hill to dine--if he had looked across even once at Woodside Farm. XXIV It was the strangest thing to wake in the morning and to realize that she was alone, living on her own responsibility, in London; the strangest thing to walk into her sitting-room and see breakfast laid for her. "Oh, I can't live by myself," she cried; "it's such a mad thing to do." But hundreds did it, why not she? Courage! She had started on her way through the world, and it would be better to begin at once arranging the work she meant to do. She knew the name of Mr. Farley's theatre; she wondered if it would be better to go and see him rather than to write. It was so difficult to explain things in a letter, and she had learned already that to get to any place she didn't know in London it was only necessary to take a cab and to pay the man at the end of the journey. She was too impatient to wait long, and it was only eleven o'clock when she inquired for Mr. Farley at the box-office of the theatre, and was directed to go to the stage door. The stage door was down a court, ugly and narrow; the door-keeper, in a little office on the right, inquired her business. Her name was written on a slip of paper and sent up to Mr. Farley, and after she had waited some minutes in an ill-kept passage a boy came and asked her to follow him--across the stage, that looked like a staring desert, and past the scenery leaning against the walls, lath and canvas and card-board and crude colors that brought home to her uncomfortably the realities of the life she was seeking; up a little staircase and into a comfortable, well-furnished room, hung with signed portraits of celebrities. Mr. Farley came forward to meet her; he shook hands and looked at her approvingly, for he had already divined the object of her visit. "And what did Miss--Miss Hannah was it--say to this scheme?" he asked, with a smile, when she had stated her ambitions. "She doesn't approve of it; but my mother will trust me." "And does any one know that you are in London?" he asked, his thoughts running to Tom Carringford. "No one; I wrote to Miss Hunstan, but she is at Bayreuth. I don't want any one else to know, Mr. Farley--my life is my own to live," she added, quickly, "and I want to begin at once. Can you let me 'walk on' as Miss Hunstan did once?"