“Oh, no; I meant to study to be an actress when I’m older, if it was surely my proper talent,” said Jane. “Never mind; thank you ever so much.”
Mrs. Mivle laughed. “Lady Macbeth and all that kind, eh?” she suggested. “We play old comedy and society plays, like ‘East Lynne,’ ‘Ten Nights in a Bar Room,’ and so on. Shakespeare’s no good; we’ve got some funny ones, too. Take it from me, kid, it’s hard work keepin’ on the go every day, sleepin’ in damp sheets and beds that are about as soft as coal beds half the time. One-night-stand companies don’t find many snaps layin’ along the tracks. And there ain’t much in it. But we have good times enough together; no jealousy nor meanness in our gang. You drop the stage notion and trim hats! Easier, and you can stick to one boardin’-house and make good money. Ain’t you two got a home, pretty girls like you? You’d think anybody’d have adopted ’em,” she added, turning again to Peter.
“Oh, yes,” cried Jane, “we have a lovely—a home. We—I mean I only wanted your advice——” She stopped again.
Florimel could not resist her temptation. “My sister thought perhaps she had so much talent for acting that it was her duty to go on the stage. She read about Miss Aldine in the Vineclad Post and came to ask her advice, whether she thought she ought to study for the stage. That’s all.”
Florimel’s eyes danced and Mrs. Mivle and the elderly actress of youthful parts twinkled back at her.
“The little one has the drop on you, my dear,” Mrs. Mivle said joyously to Jane. “She’s got practical sense. I guess you’re up in the clouds; red-haired girls often are. But you’ve got hair that ’twould be worth being up into anything—or up against anything to have! If you’ve got a good home, what you botherin’ about? Stick to it; that’s what I say. I’m an artist all right, all right; you read what your paper says about me. But no art in mine, if I had the means to settle right down and bake pies like mother used to make. Must you go? Well, good-bye and good luck. So long! Hope to meet you again. Come see us act if ever we take in this town on this circuit again. We’re the real thing, if I do say it!” The others of the company bade Jane and Florimel good-bye, shaking hands with them with the utmost cordiality, and Peter Mivle, or “Sydney Fleming,” escorted them to the stairs.
Jane heard the laugh that arose behind them in the room they had left, but she also heard “Miss Aldine” say heartily: “Perfect beauts, that’s what!” And the voice of the little woman came out to them, saying pensively: “Oh, Nettie Mivle, ain’t it fine to be young like that, and not acting it!”
Jane and Florimel walked swiftly out of the little hotel with the great name, escaping from the clerk’s evident desire to learn the result of their call and its object, and from the idle lads who were gathering around the desk to see the actors, whose “show” they had seen the night before, come out and to compare actual appearances with those behind the footlights. The walk home was a silent one for Jane, but at intervals Florimel burst into laughter that was irresistible to passers-by and irrepressible to Florimel. Mary was busy when they came in, arranging the flowers which the garden yielded; not many yet in variety, but generous in quantity, even in May.
“Where can you two have been?” cried Mary, looking up with her sweet face smiling at them in a way that seemed to match the flowers beneath her cool finger-tips. “And so early? What are you up to, Garden girls? Have you had any breakfast, you rogues?”
“Oh, Mary, wait till you hear!” cried Florimel, throwing her hat in one direction and herself in another, on a chair. “We’ve been to see Miss Aldine; Jane wanted to be examined, but she changed her mind. Petey Mivle—that’s Sydney Fleming—said she——”