He paid their fare at the opening in the tent and went in and sat on one of the crude, unbacked benches. The place was filling fast. Laughing parties of young men and young ladies entered. John told Tilly who some of them were. The "chipper, fluffy-headed blonde" was a banker's daughter, with the son of the president of the largest iron-works in Ridgeville. Another girl was the only child of a rich money-lender and the young dude with her was an ex-Governor's son, a silly fool that everybody said would have been in jail long ago for some of his scrapes but for his father's influence. John didn't really know who all of them were, though they lived in the town. They had grown up so fast and he had been so busy that he hadn't kept track of them. He did know, however, that they all belonged to a select dancing-club up the street, and they would go there after the show, no doubt. They felt that they were better than the working-class, and John said he despised them for it. Their people belonged to the leading churches and that accounted for their lack of sympathy for the poor. There were some improvised boxes or tiers of seats inclosed in scarlet ribbons on the right, which were marked, "Reserved Seats, 25 cents extra." The young society people had not taken them, for some reason or other, but, on the contrary, had found places in the body of the little amphitheater where they sat merrily eating roasted peanuts which were bought from a loud-shouting vender with a basket on his arm. It was all new to the young country wife, and she would have enjoyed it but for the grim tragedy unfolding in her experience. The music stopped, and the curtains were drawn. Two amusing Irishmen held the stage for fifteen minutes in a heated colloquy interspersed with songs and "horse play." Then when they had withdrawn, and Tilly and John were looking over the audience, a man and a woman entered, came down the wide saw-dust aisle, and turned into the reserved section. The man was very fat, short, and flashily dressed; the woman was also showily attired, powdered, painted, penciled, and perfumed. "Oh, my! Old Liz is on a splurge to-night, ain't she?" a man behind John and Tilly said, with a giggle. "Who's the fellow with her?" "'Sh!" his companion hissed, warningly, and from the corner of her eye Tilly saw him pointing at John. She looked at her husband and saw a wincing look of chagrin settling on his face. He had given but a single glance at the new-comers and now gazed fixedly at the crude drop-curtain. Tilly saw his neck and the side of his face growing red. Could it be her mother-in-law? she asked. Undoubtedly, and her escort was "Roly-poly," for Dora's description had fitted him perfectly.