So to the end did this amiable appreciation applaud the player and tolerate the play for her sake. Etta understood that it must mean much to her; but she was too feverishly impatient to dwell upon it, and she turned to the "Daily Shuffler" wishing that she had eyes to read all the papers at once. The "Daily Shuffler" was very cruel: "Miss Etta Romney," it said, "is worthy of better things. As a whole, the performance was beneath contempt. At the same time, we are not unprepared to hear that an ignorant public is ready to patronize it." Had Etta known that the author of this screed was a youth of eighteen, who had asked for two stalls and been allotted but one, she might have been less crestfallen than she was when her fingers discovered this considerable thorn upon her rose-bush. But she knew little of the drama and less than nothing of its criticism; and there were tears in her eyes when she put the papers down. "How cruel," she said, "how could people write of others like that!" She did not believe that she could have the heart to read more, and might not have done so had not little Dulcie Holmes flung herself into the room at that very moment and positively screamed an expression of her rapture. "Oh, you dear," she cried, "oh, you splendid Etta! Have you read them! Have you seen them? Now isn't it lovely? Aren't you proud of them, Etta? Aren't you just crying for joy?" Lucy Grey, who had climbed the stairs in a more stately fashion and was very much out of breath at the top of them, came in upon the climax to tell Dulcie not to carry on so dreadfully and to assure Etta that the notices were very nice. She, however, soon joined a shrill voice to her friend's, and the two, sitting upon the bed, began to read the papers together with such a running babble of comment, interjections, cries, and good-natured expressions of envy, that the neighbors might well have believed the house to be on fire. "The curtain fell to rapturous--oh, Etta--now, Lucy, do keep quiet--her acting in the Gallery Scene--I say that I began it first--her acting in the Gallery Scene--she has a grace so subtle, a manner so winning--isn't that lovely!--now, Lucy, be quiet--we began to think after the Second Act--oh, bother the Second Act--now, there you go again--she is indeed the embodiment of that picture romance has painted for us and history destroyed--oh, Etta--!" and so on, and so on.