“How do you like Mr. Forest?” asked Miriam.

“Ever so much,” returned Anne.  “Like most successful men, he is quiet and unassuming.  Mr. Southard and he did almost all the talking.  I spoke when I was spoken to and did as I was bid.”

“Good little Anne,” jeered Miriam.  “As a reward of merit we will take you shopping this afternoon.”

“How would you like to go to the opera to-night?” asked Mr. Southard.  “‘Madame Butterfly’ is to be sung.”

“Better than anything else, now that I’ve seen ’Hamlet’!” exclaimed Grace, with shining eyes.  Miriam and Anne both expressed an eager desire to hear Puccini’s exquisite opera, and Miss Southard called two of her friends on the telephone, inviting them to join the box party.  The same evening gowns had to do duty for the opera as well as for “Hamlet,” but this did not detract one whit from their pleasant anticipations.  “The people who saw us at the theatre the other night won’t see us at the opera,” argued Grace.  The three girls were in Grace’s room holding a consultation on the subject of what to wear.

“That is if they saw us at all,” laughed Miriam.  “Elfreda says Oakdale isn’t down on the map, you know.”

“That reminds me, what excuse did you make to Miss Southard about Elfreda not coming with us, Anne?” asked Grace.

“I merely said she had changed her mind about coming.”

“Did you mention that she changed it violently?” slyly put in Miriam.

“I did not,” was the smiling assertion.  “I don’t like to think about it, let alone mention it.”

“Do you suppose she’ll improve the opportunity and tell Anne’s private affairs all over college?” questioned Miriam.

“I don’t know,” said Grace briefly.  “Let us put her out of our minds for now.  It won’t do any good to worry about what she may or may not do.  When we go back to Overton we shall know.”

That night the girls listened to the wonderful voice of the prima donna whose name has become synonymous with that of “Chu Chu San,” the little Japanese maid.  Anne wondered as she drank in the music whether this beautiful young prima donna had ever had any scruples about appearing before the public.  Miriam was thinking that David would be bitterly disappointed when he knew that Anne was going back to the stage during vacation.  While, though she would not have confessed it for worlds, the throbbing undercurrent of heart break that ran through the music was filling Grace with unmistakable homesickness.  She wanted her mother and she wanted her badly.  What would she not give to feel her mother’s dear arms around her.  When the curtain shut out the still form of the Japanese girl and the prima donna received her usual ovation, the tears that stood in Grace’s eyes were not alone a tribute to the singer and the tragic death of Chu Chu San.

* * * * *