It was the first play of our heroine, Zelma Burleigh, and of her Cousin Bessie. The morning before, a fragrant May morning, scores of summers ago, Roger Burleigh, a stout Northumbrian Squire, had rolled himself, in his ponderous way, into the snug family-parlor at the Grange, and addressed his worthy dame with a bluff-- "Well, good wife, wouldn't like to go see the players to-night?" Ere the good lady could collect herself to reply with the decorous deliberateness becoming her years and station, an embroidery-frame at her side was overturned, and there sprang eagerly forward a comely young damsel of the pure Saxon stock, with eyes like England's violets,--clear, dewy, and wide-awake,--cheeks and lips like its rose-bloom, and hair which held tangled in close, golden folds its fickle and flying sunshine. "Ay, father!" she cried, "that we would! Zelma and I have never seen any players, save the tumblers over at the Hall, on Sir Harry's birthday, and we are in sad need of a little pleasuring." "Who spoke to you, or of you, Mistress Bessie?" replied the Squire, playfully. "And what is all your useless, chattering life but pleasuring? The playhouse is but a perilous place for giddy-brained lasses like you; but for once, harkee, for _once_, we'll venture on taking you, if you'll promise to keep your silly head safe under the mother-hen's wing." "Not so close but that I can get a peep at the players now and then," said Bessie, archly. "They say there are some handsome young men and a pretty woman or two among them. Eh, Zelma?" "Handsome young men!--pretty women!" exclaimed the Squire, with an explosive snort of contempt. "An arrant set of vagabonds and tramps,--of ranting, strutting, apish creatures, with neither local habitations nor names of their own. And what does Zelma know about them? Out with it, girl!" The person thus addressed, without lifting the folds of a heavy window-curtain which concealed her, replied in a quiet, though somewhat haughty tone,-- "I saw them all, yesterday afternoon, on their way to Arden. I found them near the entrance to our avenue. One of their carts had broken down, and somebody was hurt. I dismounted to see if I could be of any assistance. My pony pulled away from me and ran up the road. One of the young men caught her for me. I told Cousin Bessie I thought him handsome and proud enough for a lord. I think so still. That is all I know of the players." "And, gad, that's enough! Take _you_ to the play, indeed! Why, we shall have you strolling next, like your"--Here the Squire, for some reason known to himself, suddenly paused and grew very red in the face. Dame Margery took the word, and, in a tone meant to be severe, but which was only dry, remarked,-- "Zelma is quite too young to go to the play." "Just one week younger than my Cousin Bessie. So, please you, aunt, I will wait a few days," was the quiet reply from the invisible.