"Because we all believe ourselves to be the one great actor of the future," said Mr. Tremain, with a smile; "it's only opportunity that we lack, not genius; and it's only other people's stupidity that fails to recognise our talents." "You needn't count me in, Esther dear," cried Dick; "I never could act worth a cent, and what's more I hate it, pretending to be ever so many qualities that one is not, and never succeeding a third part as well as the most tuppenny-ha'penny actress at the Bowery!" "Dick's severe," laughed Baby Leonard, "because the first and only time she was to have appeared in public the committee were obliged to ask her to resign, she made love in such a vigorous fashion, and charged the _jeune premier_ as though he were a five-barred gate, and over him she would go, willy-nilly. She frightened him terribly, and he refused to go on with his rôle if Miss Darling continued in hers." "Baby dearly loves a sell," remarked Dick, good-naturedly, when the laugh at her expense had subsided; "but she's quite right, I'm quite too awfully horrid when it comes to making believe." With which little home thrust Miss Darling settled back in her chair beamingly. "Then, since acting it is to be, let's settle the play," said Jack Howard. "It's always a long business, and we haven't any too much time at our disposal." "There's _School_," suggested Miss James, "or _Ours_, or _The Romance of a Poor Young Man_; and oh, doesn't that make one weep for poor Montague?" "Oh, how sentimental!" cried Dick. "Why don't you have something jolly, like _The Mikado_, or _Ruddigore_, or even _Patience_? There's something more in any one of them, than in all your love and moonshine plays put together." "But since you refuse to join our company, Dick, isn't it a little grasping on your part to wish to coerce our choice?" said Esther, mischievously. "I am dumb," answered Dick, shutting her mouth firmly, and only letting her laughing eyes glance merrily from one to another, as the discussion waxed fast and furious, and threatened to end in tears and temper. It settled itself down at last, however, into a comedy, or melodrama, and a farce; and when, to end all further embarrassment, Mr. Tremain suggested a ballot to decide, it was accepted unanimously. The result gave the first preference to _The Ladies' Battle_, the second to the ever fresh _Box and Cox_. "Of course you all know I don't act," said Mrs. Newbold, prettily, and withdrawing gracefully from all contest over the rôles. "_I_ never like anything so much as being wardrobe mistress and prompter, so I shall elect myself into those positions at once, and that clears off one superfluous woman."