He came every day to Chester Street, and was evidently much less bored than Mary had prefigured by this regular tribute to verisimilitude. It was amusement enough to see the progress of their comedy and to invent new touches for some of its scenes. The girl herself was amused; it was an opportunity like another for cleverness such as hers, and had much in common with private theatricals, especially with the rehearsals, the most amusing part. Moreover, she was good-natured enough to be really pleased at the service it was impossible for her not to acknowledge that she had rendered. Each of the parties to this queer contract had anecdotes and suggestions for the other, and each reminded the other duly that they must at every step keep their story straight. Except for the exercise of this care Mary Gosselin found her duties less onorous than she had feared, and her part in general much more passive than active. It consisted, indeed, largely of murmuring thanks and smiling and looking happy and handsome; as well as, perhaps, also in saying, in answer to many questions, that nothing as yet was
