soul, has had equal development, or has it slowly starved in her
unlovely and commonplace surroundings?

It has not. Donna has never been away from San Pasqual since the day
she entered it a babe in arms, but--she presides over the news counter
in addition to her other duties. Here she has access to all the latest
"best-sellers," also the big national magazines, and through these
means she has kept pace with a world that is continually passing her by
in Pullman sleepers. To her has been given the glorious gift of
imagination, and dull, sordid, lonely San Pasqual, squatting there in
the desert sands, cannot rob her of her dreams. Rather has she grown to
tolerate the place, for at her will she can summon up a host of unreal
people to throng its dreary single street; she can metamorphose the
water tank into a sky-scraper, the long red lines of box cars on the
sidings into rows of stately mansions. She reads and dreams much, for
only between the arrival and departure of trains is she kept busy. She
sends for books that would never find a sale in San Pasqual, and some
day--ah! the glory of anticipation! she is going to Los Angeles, where
the event of her life is to take place. Going to be married? No? No,
indeed. She is going to a theater.

So much for an intimate description of our leading lady as she appears
when the curtain rises. But in all plays, whether in real life or on
the stage, there must be a leading man. Very well, be patient. In due
course he will appear. Donna has been dreaming much of this hero of
late. His name is Gerald Van Alstyne, and he is tall, with curly golden
hair, piercing blue eyes and a cleft chin; in short, a veritable Adonis
and different, so different, from the traveling salesmen who leer at
her across the counter and the loutish youths of San Pasqual who,
despairing of her favor, call her by her first name because they know