So telling myself he must be back by this time on that lonely plateau
that guards the Pole, I resolved (without thinking of the difference of
time) to go to mass on Christmas morning, in order to be doing the same
thing as Martin at the same moment.
With this in my mind I returned to our boarding-house and found
Christmas there too, for on looking into the drawing-room on my way
upstairs I saw the old actress, standing on a chair, hanging holly which
the old colonel with old-fashioned courtesy was handing up to her.
They were cackling away like two old hens when they caught sight of me,
whereupon the old actress cried:
"Ah, here's Beauty!"
Then she asked me if I would like a ticket for a dress rehearsal on
Christmas Eve of a Christmas pantomime.
"The audience will be chiefly children out of the lanes and alleys round
about, but perhaps you won't mind that," she said.
I told her I should be overjoyed, and at two o'clock the following
afternoon I was in my seat at the corner of the dress-circle of the
great theatre, from which I could see both the stage and the auditorium.
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