CHAPTER II.
"CRICKET." The little provincial theater was crowded from pit to dome--long tiers of changing faces and luminous eyes.

There was a prevalent odor of stale tobacco, and orange-peel, and bad gas; and there was bustle, and noise, and laughter, and a harsh collection of stringed instruments grinding out the overture.
There were stamps and calls for the tawdry curtain to rise, when a gentleman entered, sauntered up to a front seat, took up a bill and began to read it--a tall, middle-aged, rather distinguished-looking man, black and bearded, with piercing eyes, superfine clothes, and a general aristocratic air about him.
People paused to look again at him--for he was a stranger there--but nobody recognized him, and Mr.Carl Walraven read his bill undisturbed.
The play was "Fanchon the Cricket," and the bill announced, in very big capitals, that the part of Fanchon was to be played by that "distinguished and beautiful young English actress, Miss Mollie Dane." Mr.Walraven saw no more; he sat holding the strip of paper before him, and staring at the one name as if the fat letters fascinated him--"Fanchon, Miss Mollie Dane." A shrill-voiced bell tinkled, and the drop-curtain went up, and the household of Father Barbeaud was revealed.

There was a general settling into seats, hats flew off, the noises ceased, and the play began.
A moment or two, and, in rags and tatters, hair streaming, and feet bare, on the stage bounded Fanchon, the Cricket.
There was an uproarious greeting.

Evidently it was not Miss Dane's first appearance before that audience, and still more evidently she was a prime favorite.
Mr.Walraven dropped his bill, poised his lorgnette, and prepared to stare his fill.
She was very well worth looking at, this clear-voiced Mollie Dane--through the tatters and unkempt hair he could see that.

The stars in the frosty November sky without were not brighter than her dark, bright eyes; no silvery music that the heir of all the Walravens had ever heard was clearer or sweeter than her free, girlish laugh; no golden sunburst ever more beautiful than the waving banner of wild, yellow hair.