"Good luck to ye," said the woman. "Well I mind the night I made me first bow."

"You!"

"No less. I'd a waist on me ye could span wid yer two hands. And legs! well, it ain't fer me to be braggin', but there ain't a girl in the chorus kin stack up alongside what I oncet was! Me an' a lad named Tim Moriarty did a turn called 'The Wearing of the Green,'—'Ryan and Moriarty' was the team. I kin see the names on the bill-board now! We had 'em laughin' an' cryin' at the same time, 'til their tears run into their open mouths!"

"Wisht I could've seen you," said Nance. "I bet it was great."

The wardrobe woman, unused to such a sympathetic listener, would have lingered indefinitely had not a boy handed Nance a box which absorbed all her attention.

"Miss Birdie La Rue," was inscribed on one side of the card that dangled from it on a silver cord, and on the other was scribbled, "Monte and I will wait for you after the show. Bring another girl. M.D.C."

"And I'm the other girl!" Nance told herself rapturously.

There was a flurry in the wings above and the chorus overflowed down the stairs.

"It's a capacity house," gasped Birdie, "but a regular cold-storage plant. We never got but one round. Spagetti is having spasms."

"What's a round?" demanded Nance, but nobody had time to enlighten her.