There she lay, eyes half-closed, breathing rather heavily, more from excitement than from actual physical exertion, while the popular tenor whom Mr. Ludlow had engaged to assist in the concert was singing a song from “Lucia.” She heard his encore but faintly—enough, however, to recognize one of the solos from a popular comic opera, then someone rapped on her door and bade her be ready for her second turn.
Words fail to describe the reception she met as she played Schubert’s Sonata, followed by the march from “Lenore,” the latter seeming to strike the chord of popular approval in a very forcible manner.
She bowed herself off again, after taking ten curtain calls, to give the tenor another chance. Again she rested in her dressing-room, and again ventured forth for the last, and to her most difficult, part of the entertainment.
Two of the classics she played, then, upon insistent calls from the audience for more, nodded to the orchestra and struck into her old medley of southern airs. As the plaintive notes of “The Old Folks At Home” echoed and reëchoed through the theater, Dorothy watched the effect on her audience, and saw that many handkerchiefs were used as the sadder strains were played. “Old Black Joe” produced much the same effect, and “Dixie” aroused them to cheers which increased as the girl played “The Star Bangled Banner” and, finally, “Home, Sweet Home.”
Again and again the curtain descended, only to rise again, as the girl bowed her acknowledgments to the great audience that had received her with such marked expressions of approval. Then, to her dressing-room she went, to find that Aunt Betty and her friends had reached the stage through an entrance back of their box, and were awaiting her.
“Oh, auntie, auntie!” was all she could say, as she threw herself into the arms of her aged relative and sobbed through sheer joy.
“My dear, it is the triumph of your life. I am indeed proud to call you my own.”
“And she wasn’t one tiny bit scared,” said Molly.
“Shows you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dorothy replied, with some spirit. “Herr Deichenberg had all he could do to induce me to leave my dressing-room. Let the announcement sound as absurd as it may, I was literally scared to death.”
“If you can play like that when you’re literally scared to death,” said Molly, “I wish someone would scare me.”