The comedian, thinking that I alluded to the cabman, half-asleep upon his
seat, replied, as he turned up the collar of his overcoat:
"Oh, he's waiting for Miss Moran. She didn't always go home from the
theatre in a cab. She acquired the habit abroad, I suppose. How she's
changed. I knew her in other days."
"Really? I didn't know that. Tell me about her."
"It's a common story. She's the result of a mercenary mother's schemes.
She's not as old as people think, you know. Her career has been
eventful, which makes it seem long. But I was in the cast, playing a
small part in the first play she ever appeared in, and that was only
twelve years ago. She was about twenty-one then. She waited on customers
in her mother's little stationery store, until one day she eloped with a
poor young fellow whom she loved, in order to escape a rich old man whom
her mother had selected for a son-in-law. She could have endured poverty
well enough, if the mother hadn't done the 'I--forgive--and--Heaven--
bless--you--my--children' act, after which she succeeded in making the
girl quarrel with her husband continually.
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