“Funny!” she exclaimed. “Vinnie, I declare if I didn’t hear that strange voice again just now reciting something. It stopped just before I opened the door. Who in the world—no, not those shoes, Vinnie. I’m going to wear the gray ones to-night.” She dropped into her chair with a sigh. “My, but I’m tired! I got so nervous in that cab—oh, that’s nice, Vinnie! Thank you. It is a treat to have some one who knows what to do without being told.”
As Vinnie the maid flitted here and there in the dressing-room, handing Miss Dover this and taking off that, busying herself with hat, gown, kimono, shoes, and and hunting for the inevitably lost nail-file, there was a sparkle in her eyes that never had been there before. She trembled, but evidently not from fear. A pink flush was mounting in her cheeks.
Miss Dover caught her reflection in the glass. “What in the world are you thinking of, Vinnie?” She studied her maid in the glass as she went on rouging her lips.
Pink deepened to red on Vinnie’s face. “Oh, I don’t know that I quite dare to tell you, Miss Dover.”
Miss Dover turned squarely round and looked at her.
“Why, it was only—” Vinnie was apparently much embarrassed. “Oh, you do look so lovely, Miss Dover! I couldn’t help thinking—oh, I’d just love to be an actress!”
Sarah Dover turned back to the rouge-pot to conceal her amusement, but her shoulders were shaking. In another minute she held up an admonitory finger.
“Vinnie,” she said, “I did think that you were the one girl who would never be stage-struck. Oh, dear, nobody’s safe, then!”
“Oh, it is sort of foolish. I know, but—well, sometimes I feel kind of ambitious.”
“Ambitious! Vinnie, for Heaven’s sake, be contented! You’re an admirable maid now. Don’t spoil that with ambition. Why, Vinnie, you’re as much an artist in your line as I am in mine. I give you my word, I’ve envied you more than once!”