At last the _Record_ and the _Messenger_ came upstairs already opened to the critiques of the new opera. Mrs. Baker wished to read aloud, but I almost snatched the papers from her; my eyes couldn't go fast enough down the columns. But in neither sheet did I find more than a reference to a "senseless alarm" that marred the rendition of "Christofero." My cheeks flamed with annoyance. It was the reporters who were senseless; they had seen men adoring the wonder of this century, and had not flashed news of it--of me--to all the world! Aunt couldn't understand. She thought to comfort me by saying that my share in the disturbance would never be suspected; she unblushingly averred that no one had seen me; she begged me to rest, to forget my fright, not to be distressed by the newspapers. Distressed? Not I! Events had been too startling for me to heed the stupidity that whined over missing a few bars of a silly overture when _I_ was in sight. Indeed I had been frightened; yet why should not the world demand to look upon me? I thought only of hurrying to Prof. Darmstetter that he might share my triumph. But Aunt wouldn't hear of my leaving the house; scarcely of my coming down stairs. Fluttering into my room she would bring me some fruit, a novel; then she would trot away again with an air of preoccupation. I was getting out of patience at all this mystery, when, during one of her brief absences, Ethel tapped at my door, and a minute later Kitty Reid dashed at me, while in the doorway appeared Cadge, scratching with one hand in a black bag. "Oh, Helen, Helen," cried Kitty, laughing and half crying, "_have_ you seen Cadge's exclusive?" "Cadge! You were there? Cadge!" "Sure," said that strange creature, her keen eyes glancing about my room; "you don't deserve half I've done for you--not letting me know beforehand--." "Or me!" Kitty broke in. "Oh, I've have given a--a tube of chrome yellow to see you!" "--but we've made the Row look like nineteen cents in a country where they don't use money. See you've got the fossils." Cadge nodded towards the papers I had been reading. "But the _Star's_ worth the whole--now where the mischief--" "Cadge! Show me!" From the black bag she drew several sheets of paper, upon each of which was pasted a cutting from a newspaper, with pencilled notes in the margin; a handkerchief, a bunch of keys, six pointed pencils, a pen-knife, a purse, rather lean, a photograph of two kittens. "There," she said, relieved at sight of these, "knew I couldn't have lost 'em. Brooklyn woman left 'em $5,000 in her will. They'll stand me in a good little old half column. Now--where--ah, here you are!" She unfolded a _Star_ clipping and proudly spread it upon my knee. "There, Princess! That's the real thing!" I caught my breath at the staring headlines. BEAUTY OF A WOMAN THREATENS A PANIC AT THE OPERA HOUSE. PRESENCE OF MISS HELEN WINSHIP CREATES SENSATION THAT MIGHT HAVE RESULTED IN A PERILOUS STAMPEDE.