A girl in a green skirt, a white blouse and a green velvet bodice is seen seated on the grass near the water. She is slowly crooning a love song with the words scarcely audible.
Finally becoming impatient, she rises and wanders about, a frown on her face, a pathetic droop to her slim figure.
"Mrs. Burton looks about sixteen, doesn't she? Younger than any one of you!" David Hale murmured.
Bettina paid not the slightest attention to his remark, and scarcely heard it, as at this moment a second figure entered the stage, a boy who is about to set forth on a journey; one recognizes this from his costume before any words are exchanged. He has come to say good-by.
The first act is devoted to their farewell. One learns that the girl is to be left behind with an old aunt who has been her foster mother, while the boy goes to the United States to seek a fortune for them both.
"Mother," Bettina said softly when the curtain had fallen, "don't you think Tante makes the parting between herself and her lover too tragic? It seems to me perfectly natural and there is no special reason for being unhappy, yet just because of her gift for expressing emotion she seems the most pathetic figure in the world as he goes away and leaves her."
Mrs. Graham smiled and shook her head, but made no effort to conceal the tears in her eyes.
"Perhaps you are right, Bettina, I don't know. Polly did not believe you Camp Fire girls would care for her play. It begins in a more sentimental age than the present one. Fifteen years elapse, remember, between the first and the second act. Perhaps the modern girl would not regard the separation from her lover so seriously; she has more interests, more occupations, and sometimes I wonder if love may not mean less to her; I am not sure.
"The girl whom Polly portrays is left utterly alone, save for the old woman, who, we have learned, is harsh and querulous. She has only her dream and her affection."
Talking to Bettina alone, Mrs. Graham discovered that, as the applause died away, the other members of the box party were listening to her little speech.