“Poor little Anne!” exclaimed Ted Wilberforce.
He pitied the child’s pang at her first dash with the world in which at least one of the inimical triumvirate runs at large. “It’s the custom just now, dear; they don’t see it as we do—in a two-fold sense!”
“I’m going to say a prayer for ’em. It’s awful!” groaned little Anne with a shudder.
Then she proved that everywhere she behaved as the same little Anne, by closing her eyes, clasping her hands, and moving her lips fast, seated in the front of the stage box.
Having thrown the responsibility of rescuing these unfortunates, who were perfectly self-satisfied, upon their Maker, little Anne turned with zest to the stage.
The curtain was slowly rising upon a peaceful river, flowing between its banks under a marvellous effect of sunrise. The scene struck little Anne as familiar.
“It looks just like Cleavedge river, only I’m never out at sunrise,” she said.
“Mr. Wilberforce made the sketch; it is our river, Anne,” said Richard.
He forgot his misfortune and leaned forward as if he might see the heroine’s entrance. She emerged from the rosy mists that enveloped her, a beautiful, effective entrance for the character that was to embody youth, purity, and self-forgetful love.
The audience applauded, but was quickly silent, for the girl was speaking the lovely opening lines which embodied the aim of the play. From this moment there was complete quiet over the house, the absence of those fidgeting movements which reveal a lack of interest; the silence was far higher praise than applause could be. Yet applause followed on the first curtain fall, calling it up again and yet again, and cries of “Author!” began to arise here and there, though the time for them had not come.