man.

"I liked it amazingly and I liked your playing even more amazingly. Is it true that you are going on the stage?" He had dropped Arden now, gotten down to what he would have called brass tacks. The difference was in his voice. Tony sensed it vaguely and was suddenly a little frightened.

"Why, I—I don't know," she faltered. "I hope so. Sometime."

"Sometime is never," he snapped. "That won't do."

The Arden magic was quite gone by this time. He was scowling a little and thrust out his upper lip in a way Tony did not care for at all. It occurred to her inconsequentially that he looked a good deal like the wolf, in the story, who threatened to "huff and puff" until he blew in the house of the little pigs. She didn't want her house blown in. She wished Uncle Phil would come. She stooped to gather up her roses as if they might serve as a barricade between her and the wolf. But suddenly she forgot her misgivings again, for Max Hempel was saying incredible things, things which set her imagination agog and her pulses leaping. He was offering her a small role, a maid's part, in one of his road companies.

"Me!" she gasped from behind her roses.

"You."

"When?"

"To-morrow—the day after—next week at the latest. Chances like that don't go begging long, young lady. Will you take it?"

"Oh, I wish I could!" sighed Tony. "But I am afraid I can't. Oh, there is
Uncle Phil!" she interrupted herself to exclaim with perceptible relief.

In a moment Doctor Holiday was with them, his arm around Tony while he acknowledged the introduction to the stage manager, who eyed him somewhat uncordially. The two men took each the other's measure. Possibly a spark of antagonism flashed between them for an instant. Each wanted the lovely little Rosalind on his own side of the fence, and each suspected the other of desiring to lure her to the other side if he could. For the moment however, the advantage was all with the doctor, with his protecting arm around Tony.

"Holiday!" muttered Hempel. "There was a Holiday once who married one of the finest actresses of the American stage—carried her off to nurse his babies. I never forgave that man. He was a brute."

Tony stiffened. Her eyes flashed. She drew away from her uncle and confronted the stage manager angrily.

"He wasn't a brute, if you mean my father!" she burst out. "My mother was
Laura LaRue."

"I know it," grinned the manager, thoroughly delighted to have struck fire. The girl was better even than he had thought. She was magnificent, angry. "That's why I'm here," he added. "I just offered this young person a part in a practically all-star cast, touring the West. Do you mind?" he challenged Doctor Holiday.

"I should mind her accepting," said the other man tranquilly. "As it is,
I am duly appreciative of the offer. Thank you."

"What if I told you she had accepted?" the wolf snapped.

Tony saw the swift shadow cloud her uncle's face and hated the manager for hurting him like that.

"I didn't," she protested indignantly. "You know I wouldn't promise anything without talking to you, Uncle Phil. I told him I couldn't go."

"But you wanted to," persisted the wolf, bound to get his fangs in somewhere.

Tony smiled a little wistfully.

"I wanted to most awfully," she confessed, patting her uncle's arm to take the sting out of her admission. "Will you ask me again some day?" she appealed to the manager.

He snorted at that.

"You'll come asking me, young lady, and before long, too. Laura LaRue's daughter isn't going to settle down to being either a butterfly or a blue-stocking. You are going on the stage and you know it. No use, Holiday. You won't be able to hold her back. It's in the blood. You may be able to dam the tide for a time, but not forever."

"I don't intend to dam it," said the doctor gravely. "If, when the time comes, Tony wishes to go on the stage, I shall not try to prevent her. In fact I shall help her in every way in my power."

"Uncle Phil!" Tony's voice had a tiny catch in it. She knew her grandmother would be bitterly opposed to her going on the stage, and had imagined she would have to win even her uncle over by slow degrees to the gratifying of this desire of her heart. It had hurt her even to think of hurting him or going against him in any way—he who was, "father and mother and a'" to her. Dear Uncle Phil! How he always understood and took the big, broad viewpoint!

The manager grunted approval at that. His belligerency waned.

"Congratulate you, sir. That's spoken like a man of sense. Evidently you are able to see over the wall farther than most of the witch-ridden New Englanders I've met. I should like the chance to launch this Rosalind of yours. But don't make it too far off. Youth is the biggest drawing card in the world and—the most transient. You have to get in the game early to get away with it. I'll start her whenever you say—next week—next month—next year. Guarantee to have her ready to understudy a star in three months and perhaps a star herself in six. She might jump into the heavens overnight. Stranger things have happened. What do you say? May I have an option on the young lady?"

"That is rather too big a question to settle off hand at midnight. Tony is barely twenty-two and she has home obligations which will have to be considered. Her grandmother is old and frail and—a New Englander of the old school."

"Too bad," commiserated the manager. "But never mind all that. All I ask is that you won't let her sign up with anybody else without giving me a chance first."

"I think we may safely promise that and thank you. Tony and I both appreciate that you are doing her a good deal of honor for one small school girl, eh Tony?" The doctor smiled down at his flushed, starry-eyed niece. He understood precisely what a big moment it was for her.

"Oh, I should think so!" sighed Tony. "You are awfully kind, Mr. Hempel.
It is like a wonderful dream—almost too good to be true."

Both men smiled at that. For youth no dream is quite too extravagant or incredible to be potentially true. No grim specters of failure and disillusionment and frustration dog its bright path. All possibilities are its divine inheritance.

"Mr. Hempel, did you know my mother?" Tony asked suddenly, with a shadow of wistfulness in her dark eyes. There were so few people whom she met that had known her mother. It was as if Laura LaRue had moved in a different orbit from that of her daughter. It always hurt Tony to feel that. But here was one who was of her mother's own world. No wonder her eyes were beseeching as they sought the great manager's.

He bowed gravely.

"I knew her very well. She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen—and one of the greatest actresses. Your father was a lucky man, my dear. Few women would have given up for any man what she gave up for him."

"Oh, but—she loved him," explained Laura LaRue's daughter simply.

Again Hempel nodded.

"She did," he admitted grimly. After all these years there was no use admitting that that had been the deepest rub of all, that Laura had loved Ned Holiday and had never, for even the span of a moment, thought of caring for himself. "I repeat, your father was a very lucky man—a damnably lucky one."

And with that they shook hands and parted.

It was many months before Tony was to see Max Hempel