"What's the use? It ain't no good. I was handlin' Fidy's fits before that there young dispensary doctor was out of knee pants. Besides I ain't got fifty cents in the house."
Nance stood for a moment irresolute. She looked at the writhing figure on the bed; then she snatched up her hat and jacket.
"Quick! Where's the bottle?" she cried. "I got the money."
But after the medicine had been bought, and Fidy had grown quiet under its influence, Nance went across the hall to her own cold, barren room and flung herself across her narrow bed. The last chance of seeing the play had vanished. The only light of hope that had shone on her horizon for months had gone out.
When she got up, cold and miserable, and lighted the gas, she saw on the floor, where it had evidently been slipped under the door, a mysterious pink envelope. Tearing it open, she found, written in a large, loose scrawl:
"Dear Nance. We have just struck town. Reckon you thought I was a quitter, but I ain't. You be at the Gaiety to-morrow morning at nine A.M. Maybe I can land you something. Don't say a word to anybody about it, and make yourself look as pretty as you can, and don't be late. Don't tell my folks I'm here. I got a room down-town.
"Bye bye,
"B.S."
Nance's breath caught in her throat. The bubble was so radiant, so fragile, so unbelievable, that she was afraid to stir for fear of breaking it. She waited until she heard Mrs. Snawdor's heavy feet descending the stairs, and then she crept across the hall and sat on the side of Fidy's bed, waiting to give her the next dose of medicine. Her eyes were fixed on the bare lathes over the headboard where she had once knocked the plaster off tacking up a tomato-can label. But she did not see the hole or the wall. Calvary Alley and Cemetery Street had ceased to exist for her. She was already transported to a region of warmth and gaiety and song. All that was ugly and old and sordid lay behind her, and she told herself, with a little sob of joy, that at last the beautiful something for which she had waited so long was about to happen.