“Stop talking, you dear girl, and go and sing your best so as to make them give you an encore, anything to gain more time for me. Now go!” And Dorothy kissed her and pushed her forward.
Running down the length of the room, she flew into a telephone booth, and hastily searching out the number called up Columbus 6,000.
“Hello, hello,” called Dorothy, frantically. “Hello! Is – has – a man come back with a violin in his taxicab – I must have it! I have to play! Yes. Yes. Yes. No. No. Good-bye.”
She hung up the receiver, and sat back despondently. The cab had not returned in which she had ridden to the hall.
“Oh, what shall I do! No violin and my turn to play next. What shall I do, oh, what shall I do?”
“Miss Calvert,” called the boy. “Your turn next.”
“Oh, dear,” moaned Dorothy, “see if you can borrow an instrument for me from one of the musicians in the orchestra.”
Just then a man rushed into the room carrying a violin under his arm. Dorothy ran up to him and fairly snatched the precious thing out of his arms, exclaiming, “I can play now. I can. I can! Oh, thank you, thank you! But I must go. Please come to the Prince Arthur to-night at 8.30 p. m. I will see you then.”
With that she dashed off, and trying to calm herself, walked upon the stage.
She carefully positioned herself just where Mr. Ludlow had told her to stand, and waiting for the introduction to be played by the orchestra, looked around the house, and discovering the box party, smiled at them gayly. When the last few bars of the music were played, gracefully placing her violin in position she commenced to draw her bow gently across the strings and produced clear, vibrant tones. Her body moved rhythmically, swaying back and forward in perfect accord with the music.
The audience listened spellbound, and when she had finished the whole house echoed with applause. She then walked slowly off the stage, only to be motioned back again to play an encore which she did with as much success as she had scored with her first piece.
When she turned from the stage the second time Ruth, who was waiting in the wings, whispered in her ear, “Dorothy dear, you did just splendidly, and you will surely be a great success. The people applauded you so very much I thought they would never stop.”
“Oh, I’m so glad. I do hope Mr. Ludlow liked it, and is satisfied with me,” murmured Dorothy.
“I can answer that, Dorothy,” said a voice in back of her that belonged to Mr. Ludlow, who had left the box just as Dorothy had finished playing and come to speak to them. “Both of you girls did very well indeed. Very well indeed. But come now with me and we’ll go around and sit in the box and listen to the rest of the concert. I want to hear it all.”
With that they traced their way back and soon were seated with the rest of the party. Dorothy told them all about how she had lost her violin and at the last minute recovering it vowed that she would be more careful of it in the future.
The little party was loud in its praises of Dorothy’s playing and Ruth’s singing, for Dorothy presented her new friend to them as soon as she could.
That evening they learned that it was the chauffeur of the taxicab who had found the violin in the auto before he had returned to the garage, and he had immediately started back for the hall with it, knowing it would be needed. Dorothy sent a letter of thanks and a reward, and Aunt Betty, learning the next day that he had a little boy with a broken leg in the hospital, sent a large basket of fruit for the young sufferer.
CHAPTER VI.
THE OPERA
The girls spent the next day in a very quiet manner. The morning passed quickly as they wrote letters and fixed up their rooms. About dinner time Jim knocked at the door and Dorothy answered.
“Dorothy, I have written and ’phoned Mr. Ford and I can’t seem to get any answer from him,” announced Jim.
“What did you want him for, Jim?” questioned Dorothy.
“Why, I wanted to get his opinion on that position I want to take with the Edison Co.,” answered Jim.
“I have it!” exclaimed Dorothy. “Send him a telegram.”
“I might try that, though I have about made up my mind – ”
Just at that moment Aunt Betty called from her room, “Dorothy, Dorothy, girl!”
“Yes, Aunt Betty,” answered Dorothy, going to her aunt’s door. “What may you want?”
“Don’t you think it would be real nice if we four went for a drive this afternoon? It’s a nice warm afternoon and we can go up Fifth avenue and into the park,” suggested Aunt Betty.
“That will be fine. I’ll run and tell Alfy and we’ll get ready,” responded Dorothy, going quickly out of the room. “Alfy! Alfy! Where are you?”
“In here,” called Alfy from her room.
Dorothy rushed into the room, crying, “Alfy dear, just think, we are going driving this afternoon, Aunt Betty, Jim, and you and I. We are going driving – driving.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” exclaimed Alfy, dancing round the room. “It’s fun to go driving in a big city.”
“Let’s get ready right away,” said Dorothy, taking Alfy’s hand and dancing round in a circle with her, singing, “Let’s get ready, let’s get ready, let’s get ready right away.” And then they let go of each other’s hands and danced away to accomplish the art of “getting ready right away.”
Very soon the girls were in the sitting room waiting for Jim and Aunt Betty.
Just then Jim burst into the room crying, “Dorothy, I can’t get a horse and carriage here to drive myself like one has in Baltimore, but I did get a nice automobile. I guess it will not cost any more, for we cover so much ground in a short time. I found a large, red touring car that just holds five and the chauffeur is downstairs now waiting for us, so hustle into your things.”
“An auto ride! That’s better still,” responded Alfy as she rushed to put on her hat and coat.
“I am all ready, dear,” called Aunt Betty from the next room.
“Well, then, come on,” answered Jim. “All come with me.” And they followed him down and out to the automobile.
They were very much delighted with the auto car, and the three, Aunt Betty, Dorothy and Alfy, climbed into the back seat, and Jim took his place with the driver.
Aunt Betty called, “Jim, Jim, please tell the chauffeur to drive slowly and to go up Fifth avenue.”
Away they went. “Oh, oh, oh!” gasped Alfy at the first corner. “Oh, I most thought we would bump into that trolley car!”
“Well,” said Jim, “we didn’t, but it was a pretty close shave.”
“Just think of all the people we might have hurt if we had,” said Dorothy.
“I guess,” replied Jim, “that the only ones hurt would have been ourselves, for the trolley is so heavy we couldn’t have bothered that much.”
Just then they turned into Fifth avenue and joined the procession of already too many machines that were slowly wending their way up and down that old thoroughfare.
“Dorothy and Alfy,” said Aunt Betty, “in those large houses live the very rich of New York.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t live in a house like that,” said Alfy, “if I was rich. I couldn’t, I just could never be happy in one like that,” pointing to a large gray stone mansion. “It hasn’t any garden and windows only in the front, and looks like a pile of boxes, one on top of the other.”
“Don’t the people