Clear the stage everybody!
Ready for the curtain? Let her go!"
Nance, peering excitedly through the little round holes of her mask, saw
the big curtain slowly ascend, revealing only a dazzling row of
footlights beyond. Then gradually out of the dusk loomed the vast
auditorium with its row after row of dim white faces, reaching back and
up, up further than she dared lift her head to see. From down below
somewhere sounded the weird tinkle of elfin music, and tiptoeing out from
every tree and bush came a green-clad gnome, dancing in stealthy silence
in the sleeping forest. Quite unconsciously Nance began to keep time. It
was such glorious fun playing at being animals and fairies in the woods
at night. Without realizing what she was doing, she dropped into what she
used to call in the old sweat-shop days, "dancin' settin' down."
A ripple of amusement passed through the audience, and she looked around
to see what the gnomes were up to, but they were going off the stage, and
the suppressed titter continued. A soft whistle sounded in the wings, and
with a furiously beating heart, she slid down from her high stump and
ambled down to the footlights.
All might have gone well, had not a sudden shaft of white light shot
toward her from the balcony opposite, making a white spot around the
place she was standing. She got out of it only to find that it followed
her, and in the bewilderment of the discovery, she lost her head
completely. All her carefully practised steps and poses were utterly
forgotten; she could think of nothing but that pursuing light, and her
mad desire to get out of it.
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