Everything was massive, and spacious and enduring. The entrance way was magnificent, and Rose followed Mr. Harvey as if in a dream. They took a mysterious short cut somewhere, and came out into a narrow balcony, which was divided into stalls. Through arched openings Rose caught glimpses of the mighty hall, immense as a mountain cave, and radiant as a flower.
As they moved along, Mrs. Harvey turned to Isabel.
"She'll do; don't worry!"
At their box Mr. Harvey paused and said, with a pleasant smile:
"Here we are."
Dr. Sanborn met them, and there was a bustle getting wraps laid away.
"You sit here, my dear," said Mrs. Harvey. She was a plump, plain, pleasant-voiced person, and put Rose at ease at once. She gave Rose the outside seat, and before she realized it the coulé girl was seated in plain view of a thousand people, under a soft but penetrating light.
She shrank like some nocturnal insect suddenly brought into sunlight. She turned white, and then the blood flamed to her face and neck. She sprang up.
"O, Mrs. Harvey, I can't sit here," she gasped out.
"You must!—that is the place for you," said Mrs. Harvey. "Do you suppose an old housewife like me would occupy a front seat with such a beauty in the background? Not a bit of it! The public welfare demands that you sit there." She smiled into the scared girl's face with kindly humor.