"Wait till the end, to see how she comes out. We must all be merciful!" sighed Mrs. Rooth. "We've seen it before; you know what happens," Miriam observed to her mother. "I've seen so many I get them mixed." "Yes, they're all in queer predicaments. Poor old mother--what we show you!" laughed the girl. "Ah it will be what _you_ show me--something noble and wise!" "I want to do this; it's a magnificent part," said Miriam. "You couldn't put it on in London--they wouldn't swallow it," Basil Dashwood declared. "Aren't there things they do there to get over the difficulties?" the girl inquired. "You can't get over what _she did_!"--her companion had a rueful grimace. "Yes, we must pay, we must expiate!" Mrs. Rooth moaned as the curtain rose again. When the second act was over our friends passed out of their _baignoire_ into those corridors of tribulation where the bristling _ouvreuse_, like a pawnbroker driving a roaring trade, mounts guard upon piles of heterogeneous clothing, and, gaining the top of the fine staircase which forms the state entrance and connects the statued vestibule of the basement with the grand tier of boxes, opened an ambiguous door composed of little mirrors and found themselves in the society of the initiated. The janitors were courteous folk who greeted Sherringham as an acquaintance, and he had no difficulty in marshalling his little troop toward the foyer. They traversed a low, curving lobby, hung with pictures and furnished with velvet-covered benches where several unrecognised persons of both sexes looked at them without hostility, and arrived at an opening, on the right, from which, by a short flight of steps, there was a descent to one of the wings of the stage. Here Miriam paused, in silent excitement, like a young warrior arrested by a glimpse of the battle-field. Her vision was carried off through a lane of light to the point of vantage from which the actor held the house; but there was a hushed guard over the place and curiosity could only glance and pass.