Of the latter order was Miss Eunice Terry, whose real name was Mary Kent. She became Eunice Terry on her accession to the stage because she foolishly believed such verbal extravagances would facilitate her ascent of the ladder of Fame. The foolishness of Eunice did not stop with her choice of a name, for the stage had scarcely claimed her as its own before she adopted the practice of calling everyone “My dear,” of colouring her naturally pretty face with unnatural pigments, and of wearing clothes, and particularly boots, of a type which no man admires, except on evenings of frivolity removed from the home circle. Had Eunice Terry been a wise little girl she would have remained Mary Kent even though on the stage. For Mary Kent was quite an attractive person, and far more likely to figure in the cast of a play than any amount of Eunice Terrys. But she was not a wise little girl, she was a very foolish one, and her folly was the cause of a growing grief in the heart of Henry Churchill, who had loved her with joy as Mary, and continued to do so with melancholy as Eunice. Henry Churchill was a big, conventional young man, with a disproportionately small salary derived from an estate agent. He had first met Mary when the latter was employed by the same firm as typist, and had succumbed at once to her fascinations. They spent four delightful months getting engaged, and, after working hours, would sit on the pebbles of Bognor beach and make delicious plans for the future. There was only one cloud to dim the skies of these pleasant discourses, and that was Mary’s constantly expressed ambition to go on the stage. “I should have gone ages ago,” she would say, “if it hadn’t been for Auntie, and you know what she is.” And Henry secretly thanked Heaven for Auntie, for, knowing nothing whatever about the stage or stage-folk, he very properly disapproved of both. Auntie, it appears, was the stumbling-block to many joyous enterprises. It was she who insisted that he must earn fully two hundred a year before she would consent to the match. “Mary wants any amount of looking after,” she said, “and you’re not old enough yet to look after yourself.” A premature marriage was thus averted, and the young lovers consoled themselves by privately condemning Auntie’s tyranny and common-sense. Then one day Auntie died, unexpectedly and inconspicuously on the horsehair sofa in the parlour, and Mary Kent was left alone in the world to work out her own destiny.