"Oh, how I envied you that day when you turned up among the tombs, covered all over with dust, looking so fit and going so free! If I were only a man, to go off with you on the tramp!" "I wish you were, Molly. We would go off together. I've often thought of it. You should carry a mandoline; I would stick to the fiddle. We would take a room at the inn, and have a little show. You should dance and sing and twang the mandoline. I should play the fiddle and do the patter. We should have a rare time, Molly." "We should, oh, we should! Do you remember that time when daddy let me go with him, and you came too?" "I do. I remember how charming you looked, even then! You were about fourteen; you wore a red flannel cap. You used to take off your shoes and stockings whenever we came to a brook, and wade in it with your pretty bare feet." "And we rested on the trunks of trees in the woods, and had dinner in the open. And you talked to all the gipsies in their own language. And one night we sat round their fire, and had some of their stew for supper. Oh! And we listened to the birds, and made nosegays of honeysuckle. And the people came to the inn at night while you played the fiddle, and daddy sang comic songs and did conjuring tricks. Oh, what a time it was!" "And you danced. Don't forget your dance, Molly. I taught you that dance." The girl laughed merrily. Then she threw herself into the attitude common to all dancing-girls in all ages and all countries--the arms held out and the foot pointed. "I haven't forgotten it, Dicky. I only wish I could forget it." She sighed. "It would be better for me if I could." "If we _could_ go away together, Molly!" He took her hand and held it. "Don't, Dick, don't! You make me feel a longing for the road and the country." "There's nothing like it, Molly darlin', nothing! When the summer comes, I'm off. All the winter I live in a lonely flat, and am respectable." "As respectable as you can be, Dick." "Well, I put on dress clothes and get engagements. I don't mind, so that in summer I can be a tramp and a rogue and a vagabond." "Not a rogue, Dick." "I was born behind the scenes in a circus at St. Louis before my worthy parent ran away from his wife. It's in the blood, I suppose. I don't care, Molly, what they say." He sprang to his feet, and began to walk about. "There is no life like it. We don't want money; we don't try to be gentlefolk. We're not cooped up in cages. All we've got to do is to amuse the people. We're not stupid; we're not dull. We're not selfish; we are contented with a little. We're never tired of it. We're always trying some new business. My poor Molly, you're out of it. Pity, pity!" He sat down again, shaking his head. "And you born to it--actually born to it!" "Well, I'm to have the next best thing to it. I'm to be an actress, at any rate." "An actress! Well, that's something. Tell me about it, Molly."