Marion Marlowe's Escape, or, A Dangerous Mistake on the Road — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

& MY QUEEN. who had just come back from seeing the rest of his company comfortable. “Oh, here’s the baby!” cried Miss Allyn, as a flaxen-haired child came along the aisle, holding tightly to her mother’s hand. “Do give her to me, Mrs. Burnside! I must have her near me! I tell you, if it wasn’t for Ruby I’d flunk completely !” “Oh, Alma! cried Marion. And leave us in the lurch!” “Why, just think how im- portant you are in the cast, and Mr. Temple has not provided an understudy for you.” “Well, | wishehe’d get one, and an upper- “Tn fact, nothing would suit me better than to study, too,’ said Miss Allyn, sighing. be surrounded with them.” “Why are you so nervous?’ asked Miss Ellis, smilingly. “Don’t know,” said Miss Allyn, honestly ; “only it’s out of my line. I’ve spent my lite in writing up tragedies, but not in playing them.” “Oh, but that is heaps better than having them in actual experience,” laughed Miss El- lis. “But I’ve been told you have to feel them in order to be a great artist. Why, when Miss Marlowe plays tragedy you would honestly think she was feeling them.” “T do feel them,” said Marion, softly; “and sometimes they harrow me up terribly. ] have frequently had a nervous headache after a performance.” “Marion has experienced a few tragedies ‘1 her short life,” said Miss Allyn, with a fond glance at the young girl. “Her life since she came from the country has been nothing but tragedy. She hlood-curdling experiences to the square inch has had more than any other woman in creation.” “T cuess that is right.” Dr. Brookes spoke slowly, in his rich, 'man- ly voice. left standing by the window just back of Marion. The beautiful star of the company glanced He had his chair and was up as he spoke, and her rosy cheeks flushed a little deeper as she caught the look that was being bestowed upon her. “My life has not been very serene, I’ll ad- mit,’ she tried to say, gayly; “but sometimes I think my ‘tragedies,’ as Alma calls them, are a judgment upon me. I was always long- ing for excitement when [ lived at home in the country.” } “Oh, Miss Marlowe, did you come from the country?” asked Mrs. Burnside. Marion_smiled at her recollections as she answered the question. “T am from Hickorytown, Connecticut,” she said, very softly. “It is a stupid little place—all hills -and valleys, with absolutely nothing in it to interest one except cows and chickens. I was always longing to get away from it, but I don’t know—perhaps it would have been far better if I hadn't.” A wistful look had crept into her great, gray eyes, and, as the train flew on, she turned and gazed thoughtfully out of the window. “We are very glad you didn’t stay buried alive in the country,” spoke up Alma Allyn, “Why, Marion, your career will You came among us like | quickly. make history yet! a comet, and you have been scintillating ever since !”’ “And perhaps some day I shall go out like a puff, a whiff of smoke, and then, total oblivion.” The young girl spoke so tragically that for 4 moment her friends all stared at her. There was a thrill in her voice that sounded omi- a comet nous. If they had known her better they would Lave been even more alarmed, for Marion was rarely wrong in her intuitions.» As she spoke a sudden darkness had swept over her brain, and with the horror of many thrilling experiences to explain her premoni- tions, she knew instantly that something Eomicbooks com