The gray eyes of the young man thus addressed softened as he looked at the small, eager face of the youngest scrubber.
"Stop at the office on your way out, Amarilly," he said kindly, "and
I'll give you a pass to the matinée this afternoon."
Amarilly's young heart fluttered wildly and sent a wave of pink into her pale cheeks as she voiced her gratitude.
She was the first to enter when the doors opened that afternoon, and she kept close to the heels of the usher.
"He ain't agoin' to give me the slip," she thought, keeping wary watch of his lithe form as he slid down the aisle.
In the blaze of light and blare of instruments she scarcely recognized her workaday environment.
"House sold out!" she muttered with professional pride and enthusiasm as the signal for the raising of the curtain was given. "Mebby I'd orter give up my seat so as they could sell it."
There was a moment's conflict between the little scrubber's conscience and her newly awakened desires.
"I ain't agoin' to, though," she decided. And having so determined, she gave her conscience a shove to the remotest background, yielding herself to the full enjoyment of the play.
The rehearsal had been inspiring and awakening, but this, "the real thing," as Amarilly appraised it, bore her into a land of enchantment. She was blind and deaf to everything except the scenes enacted on the stage. Only once was her passionate attention distracted, and that was when Pete in passing gave her an emphatic nudge and a friendly grin as he munificently bestowed upon her a package of gum. This she instantly pocketed "fer the chillern."