The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World

ning for half her lifetime, although it had been only a week since Polly's initial appearan

her friend, this week had been almost as absorbing to Esther Crippen as to the other girl. For after the first two nights she had lost her fear that Polly might make an absolute failure of her part, and also the impression that either of them might be insulted or unkindly treated by the men and women about them. People had been rough perhaps, but thoroughly business-like. And if Polly were told to hurry, or to move on, or corrected for

me for rehearsing. Nevertheless she had made one of those sudden yet conspicuous triumphs that are so frequent in stage life. Sometimes it may happen with a girl playing the part of a maid, sometimes with a man who has not half a dozen sentences to reci

of the performance, she was not so much so as on that evening of t

the forgetting of her own individuality. It seemed as though she were only living out a kind of dream. Nothing was real, nothing was actual about her. The audience di

he into which one really fits. And though this place may seem crowded, or ugly, or undesirable to other

nd either tonight or during the week past. All of her being was too deeply

ng the cue for her own entrance; yet she was as keenly intent upon each detail of

d followed on the day of her own engagement. Polly had been glad to make the discovery later that this same girl had been engaged to play the part of Grazioso's gran

ng with the fairies. A small, shabby room revealed a low fire burning in the grate. In an armchair s

adder appear and come gliding along the sands toward the bird. When they were near each other the adder twined itself around the neck of the halcyon as if it were embracing it tenderly. Then I saw a great black cat, who could be nothing else than a magician, hiding itself behind a rock close to me. And scarcely had the halcyon and adder embraced than the cat sprang on the innocent pair. This was my tim

opposite side she could see the other girl who impersonated the water fairy, also read

ther was contin

til some hand should restore them to liberty. To me they owed freedom and

d." The old woman leaned over, stroking her grandson's dark hair. "The Fairy of the Woods gave me a scale from the snake's skin and the Fairy of th

nt later handed the box to the old woman,

forward nearer the footlights. There in the center of the room

, greatness, wit, power," murmurs the old woman.

ach either to embrace or a

er!" he cried. "Appear, Fairy of the

wly forward, so slim and young and tall, with such big, dark-blue eyes, and su

th of appreciation moved through it, wh

ker by the wreath of leaves that encircled her head. She was dressed in an olive-green gown

de. She was a pretty girl, but somehow there was no suggestion of the fairy about her. One could see th

asy to understand why the attention should be focused upon her dur

uld be strong and full enough to be heard throughout the theater. Tonight and for the first time she hesitated for a second. Yet

ild?" the leading man whispered so

, with a faint shake

nstant, speaking in clear, girlish tones that

We can prolong your grandmother's life for some time. But

Grazioso, "I wi

' journey without turning out of your road and if, on arriving at the castle, you can answer the three questions that an in

she welcomed this, Polly also dreaded it more than anything else. Always a curtain call came at the close of this scene, when she and the Fairy of the

girl who was deceiving her family and friends to have this first taste of stage life, and who might suffer almost any kind of consequences: imprisonment in some boarding school, Polly feared, where she might never again be allowed any liberty or an equal imprisonment in Woodford, with

shaking so absurdly. And all the faces in the audience were swimming before her, as though they

ely familiar. And yet could it be possible that this person of all others should be h