"You'll not think it a joke at the end of the week. It's terribly hard work to put on a big piece like this. If I seem apathetic in my part I beg you not to worry. I must save myself all I can. I never begin to act at rehearsal till I have thought the business all out in my mind. But come, you are to lunch with us in honor of the first rehearsal, and it is late." "It seems a deplorable thing that you must come every morning to this gloomy and repellent place--" "Ah! this is a part of our life the public knows nothing of. They all come to it--the divine Sarah, Duse--none are exempt. The glamour of the foot-lights at night does not warm the theatre at eleven of the morning." "I see it does not," he answered, lightly; but in reality he felt that something sweet and something regal was passing out of his conception of her. To see her even seated with these commonplace men and women detracted even from her glory, subjected her to the same laws. It was a relief to get out into the gay street--to her carriage, and to the hotel where the attendants hovered about her as bees about their queen. She was in high spirits all through the luncheon, and Douglass was carried out of his dark gravity by her splendid vitality, her humor, and her hopefulness. "All you need is a hearing," she said. "And you shall have that. Oh, but there is a wilderness of work before us! Can you design the scenes? I like to do that. It's like playing with doll-houses. I'll show you how. We'll leave the financial side of it to you, Hugh," she said, to her brother. "Come, Mr. Playwright," and they set to work with paste and card-board like a couple of children, and soon had models of all the sets. They seemed childish things indeed, but Helen was mistress of even the mechanical side of the stage, and these paste-pot sketches were of the greatest value to the scene-painter and the carpenter. V These three weeks of rehearsal formed the happiest time Douglass had ever known, for all things conspired to make each day brim with mingled work and worship. First of all, and above all, he was permitted to meet Helen each day, and for hours each day, without fear of gossip and without seeking for an excuse. Each morning, a little before ten, he left his room and went directly to the theatre to meet the company and the manager. The star, prompt as a clock, arrived soon after, and Douglass, beforehand, as a lover, was always there to help her from her carriage and to lead the way through the dark passage to the stage, where the pompous little Saunders was forever marshalling his uneasy vassals in joyous exercise of sovereignty. Helen was happy as a child during these days, and glowing with new ideas of "business" and stage-setting. "We will spare no work and no expense," she said, buoyantly, to Mr. Westervelt, her manager. "We have a drama worthy of us. I want every one of Mr. Douglass's ideas carried out."