Grey, going with her husband and Mrs. Sheppard down Broadway, from their hotel, had a fancy that the world was so cheerfully, heartily at work, that the night was no longer needed. Overhead, the wind from the yet frozen hills swept in such strong currents, the great city throbbed with such infinite kinds of motion, and down in the harbor yonder the rush of couriers came and went incessantly from the busy world without. Grey was a country-girl: in this throbbing centre of human life she felt suddenly lost, atom-like,--drew her breath quickly, as she clung to Paul's arm. The world was so vast, was hurrying on so fast. She must get to work in earnest: why, one must justify her right to live, here. Mrs. Sheppard, as she plodded solidly along, took in the whole blue air and outgoing ocean, and the city, with its white palaces and gleaming lights. "People look happy here," she said. "Even Grey laughs more, going down the streets. Nothing talks of the war here." Paul looked down into the brown depths of the eyes that were turned towards him. "It is a good, cheery world, ours, after all. More laughing than crying in it,--when people find out their right place, and get into it." Mrs. Sheppard said, "Umph?" Kentuckians don't like abstract propositions. They stopped before a wide-open door, in a by-street. _Not_ an opera-house; one of the haunts of the "legitimate drama," Yet the posters assured the public in every color, that _La petite Elise_, the beautiful _debutante_, etc., etc., would sing, etc., etc. Grey's hand tightened on her husband's arm. "This is the place,"--her face burning scarlet.