"I think so," she said hesitatingly. "Clara says it will be very amusing. And you must remember how much I enjoyed 'Faust' and 'Hamlet.'"

Errington smiled. "You'll find the Brilliant performance very different to either," he said amusedly. "You don't know what a burlesque is like!"

"Then I must be instructed," replied Thelma, smiling also, "I need to learn many things. I am very ignorant!"

"Ignorant!" and he swept aside with a caressing touch the clustering hair from her broad, noble brow. "My darling, you possess the greatest wisdom--the wisdom of innocence. I would not change it for all the learning of the sagest philosophers!"

"You really mean that?" she asked half timidly.

"I really mean that!" he answered fondly. "Little sceptic! As if I would ever say anything to you that I did not mean! I shall be glad when we're out of London and back at the Manor--then I shall have you all to myself again--for a time, at least."

She raised her eyes full of sudden joy,--all traces of her former depression had disappeared.

"And I shall have you!" she said gladly. "And we shall not disappoint Lady Winsleigh to-night, Philip--I am not tired--and I shall be pleased to go to the theatre."

"All right!" responded Philip cheerfully. "So let it be! Only I don't believe you'll like the piece,--though it certainly won't make you cry. Yet I doubt if it will make you laugh, either. However, it will be a new experience for you."

And a new experience it decidedly was,--an experience, too, which brought some strange and perplexing results to Thelma of which she never dreamed.

She went to the Brilliant, accompanied by Lady Winsleigh and her husband,--Neville, the secretary, making the fourth in their box; and during the first and second scene of the performance the stage effects were so pretty and the dancing so graceful that she nearly forgot the bewildered astonishment she had at first felt at the extreme scantiness of apparel worn by the ladies of the ballet. They represented birds, bees, butterflies, and the other winged denizens of the forest-world,--and the tout-ensemble was so fairy-like and brilliant with swift movement, light, and color that the eye was too dazzled and confused to note objectionable details. But in the third scene, when a plump, athletic young woman leaped on the stage in the guise of a humming-bird, with a feather tunic so short that it was a mere waist-belt of extra width,--a flesh-colored bodice about three inches high, and a pair of blue wings attached to her fat shoulders, Thelma started and half rose from her seat in dismay, while a hot tide of color crimsoned her cheeks. She looked nervously at her husband.




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