I give a little spring with my right leg, and I throw up my left leg like this. At the same instant you throw your right arm under my shoulders, your left arm gathers my legs; I will hold 'em stiff. There!"
Miss Dounay's arm was on John's shoulder, and she was preparing to suit the rest; of her action to her words. "Without any effort to lift me," she continued, talking now into his ear, "I will be extended in your arms. All you have to do is to be taking your running stride as I come to you, and after that to hold me poised while you bound off the stage. Can you do it?"
With this crisp, challenging question on her lips, Miss Dounay completed the proposed manœuvre of her lower limbs, and John found himself with the long, exquisitely moulded body of a beautiful woman balancing in his arms, while a foolish quiver passed over him and shook him till he actually trembled.
"Am I so heavy?" asked a matter-of-fact voice from his shoulder.
"You are not heavy at all," replied Hampstead, hotly provoked at himself.
"Run, then," she commanded.
The resultant effort was a few staggering, ungraceful steps.
"Dounay weighs a hundred and fifty if she weighs an ounce," said a passing voice.
John, all chagrin as he deposited the lady upon her feet, saw her lip curl, and her dark eyes flash scornfully at the leading juvenile man who, with grimacing intent to tease, had made the remark to the ingénue as both passed near.
"Insolence!" hissed Miss Dounay after the scoffer, and turned again to Hampstead, speaking sharply. "Very bad! You must be in your running stride when my weight falls on you. We must practice."
And practice they did, at every spare moment of the rehearsal during the entire week. From these "prac-
