prime favorite.

Mr. Walraven dropped his bill, poised his lorgnette, and prepared to
stare his fill.

She was very well worth looking at, this clear-voiced Mollie
Dane--through the tatters and unkempt hair he could see that. The stars
in the frosty November sky without were not brighter than her dark,
bright eyes; no silvery music that the heir of all the Walravens had
ever heard was clearer or sweeter than her free, girlish laugh; no
golden sunburst ever more beautiful than the waving banner of wild,
yellow hair. Mollie Dane stood before him a beauty born.

Every nerve in Carl Walraven's body thrilled as he looked at her. How
lovely that face! How sweet that voice, that laugh! How eminently well
she acted!

He had seen women of whom the world raved play that very part; but he
had never, no, never seen it better played than he saw it to-night.

"She will make the world ring with her name if she adheres to the
stage," Carl Walraven said to himself, enthusiastically; "and she never
will play anything better than she plays the 'Cricket.' She is Fanchon
herself--saucy, daring, generous, irresistible Fanchon! And she is
beautiful as the angels above."

The play went on; Fanchon danced, and sobbed, and sung, and wept, and
was mischievous as a scratching kitten, and gentle as a turtle-dove;
took all the hearts by storm, and was triumphantly reunited to her lover
at last.