It was tacitly understood that Julia was to be an actress some day, when she was older, and the boarding-house of Mrs. Minnie Tarbury, to which the Pages were idly sauntering, was inhabited almost entirely by theatrical folk.  Emeline and Julia were quite at home in the shabby overcrowded house in Eddy Street, and to-day walked in at the basement door, under a flight of wooden stairs that led to the parlour floor, and surprised the household at lunch in the dark, bay-windowed front room.

Mrs. Tarbury, a large, uncorseted woman, presided.  Her boarders, girls for the most part, were scattered down the long table.  Luncheon was properly over, but the girls were still gossiping over their tea.  Flies buzzed in the sunny window, and the rumpled tablecloth was covered with crumbs.  Mrs. Tarbury kissed Mrs. Page, and Julia settled down between two affectionate chorus girls.

“You know you’re getting to be the handsomest thing that ever lived, Ju!” said one of these.  Julia smiled without raising her eyes from the knives and forks with which she was absently playing.

“She’s got the blues to-day,” said her mother.  “Not a word out of her!”

“Is that right, Ju?” somebody asked solicitously.

“Just about as right as Mama ever gets it,” the girl said, still with her indifferent smile.  Because her mother was shallow and violent, she had learned to like a pose of silence, of absent-mindedness, and because of the small yet sufficient income afforded by the rented rooms and from alimony, Julia was removed from the necessity that drove these other girls to the hard and constant work of the stage, and could afford her favourite air of fastidious waiting.  She was going to be an actress, yes, but not until some plum worthy of her beauty and youth was offered.  Meanwhile she listened to the others, followed the history of the favourites of the stage eagerly, and never saw less than four shows a week.  Julia, at Juliet’s age, had her own ideas as to the interpretation of the Balcony Scene, and could tell why she thought the art of Miss Rehan less finished than that of Madame Modjeska.  But personally she lacked ambition, in this direction at least.

However, she joined in the girls’ talk with great zest; a manager was to be put in his place, and several theories were advanced as to his treatment.

“I swear to God if Max don’t give me twenty lines in the next, I’ll go on to New York,” said a Miss Connie Girard dispassionately.  “There’s a party I know there rents a house that Frohman owns, and he’d give me a letter.  What I want is a Broadway success.”

“That time we played—­you know, seven weeks running, in Portland,” said a stout, aging actress, “the time my little dance made such a hit, you know—­”

“Mind jer, Max never come near us this morning,” interrupted a Miss Rose Ransome firmly.  “Because he knew what he done, and he wasn’t looking for trouble!  He wrote a notice—­”