Page:A Leaf in the Storm.djvu/131

 when she would sing and laugh and be gay! Yes, I think she was not otherwise than happy then.

It was midwinter when a great thing happened to me,—a wonder which I had all my life dreamed of as a glory quite impossible to ever fall to such a one as myself. Whilst we were in the central provinces, playing in a little town at the Noel season, a man from Paris, owning a theatre there,—it was the theatre of the Folies-Marigny,—saw me act in our wooden booth, and thought so much of it, that he sought me out at the close of the performance.

"You are a fine actor," he said. "Has no one ever found that out before now, that you stroll about with a wooden show? Come with me and I will make you known in Paris."

I could not believe my ears. Yet he was quite serious, and had meant every word he had said. I closed with his offer, dizzy with astonishment at such fulfilment of my most golden dream; and then I went and told her.

She threw her arms round my throat and kissed me many times.

"Ah, now I shall be very happy!" she cried. "To be in the world at last!"

And then she fell to a thousand pretty schemes for feasts and ornaments and all sorts of brilliancies,