"Par Dieu!" cried old Lefebvre, "'tis Juliet's self!"
"And oh, mon Dieu! mon Dieu!" the old woman exclaimed, "if you can act as you can look the part! Oh, Mr. Thrall, I crave your pardon! Will I costume her?—will I? We shall make of her that last blossom of the House of Capulet—the very Juliet herself!" She turned and half whispered to the old man, "Slight and dark!"
He took snuff furiously, and added: "Rich colored, quick tempered, hot!"
And then, together: "Let's see! let's see!" and they turned excitedly toward their boxes.
"No velvet, I think?" suggested Thrall, who was highly elated that his judgment, so far, had been so heartily seconded by this experienced old couple.
"Velvet? Bah!" responded Nonna Angelique, with a condemnatory wave of the hand that swept velvet entirely out of consideration. "Too old! too heavy! but—but—" She tossed things right and left in hurried, nervous search.—"Where's that blond lace scarf?" she fretted, "where?—where? And why don't you open the cabinet, and not stand there wasting time, mon mari?"
As they stood waiting, Stewart Thrall said, laughingly: "Patience, patience! We are in the hands of the powers that be. These are the people who 'paint the lily' and—er—er—touch up refined gold! And, Miss Lawton, haven't you been about a theatre long enough to learn how indiscreet it is to laugh at your manager's imperfect quotations? You should reserve your merriment for those occasions when he tells a supposedly funny story. Ah! ah! the lost is found!"
For Nonna Angelique came trotting up with a long scarf of silky old blond lace trailing from her hands, and Sybil, turning toward her, gave a cry of rapture. Drawer, too, after drawer had been drawn out from the chiffonier, and from their velvet-lined depths there came a blaze and glow and gleam and such dancing prismatic colors of violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, from jewels in such good and careful setting that, imitation though they were, they commanded admiration even in broad daylight.
Among these crowns and crosses, stomachers and necklaces, there were minutely exact copies of some famous originals treasured in the museums of Europe. Nor were these ornaments cheap; the price of many of them was told in hundreds of dollars, not tens. And Sybil, while missing their real value, which lay in their historical accuracy, might well be forgiven for her childish delight in their meretricious splendor.
"Oh, how I wish Dorrie could see, too!" she exclaimed, and the snuffy old man nudged his rumpled old wife with his elbow, and, looking at Sybil's flushed and happy young face, they wagged their heads knowingly.