Her Faithful Knight — page 124: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

120 Her First Rehearsal. she had already committed to heart, were in marked con- trast to the flippant and indifferent demeanor of the other members of the cast, not one of whom had glanced at his or her part since the reading of the play in London a few days before. A dead silence fel! suddenly upon Dorothy’s fellow- players as Zara made her first appearance, holding her brown paper covered book face dowrlward, proceeded to recite, in slow, laborious tones, and blushing deeply from self-consciousness, the heroine’s opening speech. ‘At last, at last, 1am alone! Ah, how my brain burns! Since leaning from my casement yester eve, I per- ceived in a gondola that face, those eyes upturned toward me, all the current of my life has turned, and stormy waters seem ever and again to rush over my soul. This marriage with Herbert Carewe, which up to now I have regarded with indifference, fills me with dread, with loath- ing! Ah, could I but see that face again, to read my fate there!” These lines, enunciated with the halting consciousness of a student of Mavor’s spelling book by a lovely young Englishwoman, who obviously felt that she was making a fool of herself, caused an irresistible smile to spread over the faces of the “Love’s Right’? Company. Only Mrs. Graham from her chair at the side of the stage be-. trayed no amusement, but gave vent to her indignation in a snort of disapproval. “A raw amateur,” she muttered to Mrs. Stourton- Chepe, who was seated near her. “An incompetent be- ginner in the leading part, and my Mabel, who has had splendid notices in every newspaper in England, put off with a mere walking lady!” “My dear Mrs. Graham,” her companion observed in her customary acidulated tones, “preferment on the stage does not go by merit. Miss Knight is very beautiful, EComicboo “S (E(0)