The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-20
MARCIA HAwLEY sat in her rooml

MI AuOlA f1A W AE edC III uct tvVui NA at the Delaney house sewing. It was a side room with one window which didn't give a very good light. She had had to put on glasses. Nobody in the company, not even her husband, knew that she had to wear those glasses at imes-whenever she mended gar ment or studied a new part. She kept them q secret like a good many other things that lay heavy on her mind.
 It was the third day of rain, a thick, warm, obscuring drizzle, and the streets of the little town had an abar- doned, dingy look. From her window Marcia could look down into an alley Uttered with tin cans, papers and coal ashes. It was scarcely less dishearten- ing to see these than the room itself, with its battered furniture. stained car pet and the rat hole in the corner, at which sometimes there was a flick of motion. Marcia was afraid of rats and she shivered occasionally at the thought of her rodent observer. It was no use to plug up the hole--she had tried that
 She was working upon dress so beautiful that it flung into pitiable contrast her old kimono and her sur roundings. It was a frothy thing of ecru chiffon flounces with a sparkling girdle. She had caught her heel in one of the flounces the night before and torn it. It was an unfortunate accident, for such dresses cost great deal nowadays.
 As she worked she wondered what her children were doing. They lived with her mother at home in distant town. There were two children, boy and a girl. Paul would be in high school next year and Emily was already there. Paul was to be an electrician and Emily 6 domestic-scienc teacher From the hour of their birth she had de cided that they should neither of them go on the stage. She had had to strug gle with her husband on that account Dent liked his profession. He had been born into it and the only life he knew was comprised of week stands, of cir. cults. of alisliences and rehearsals.
 The audiences were mainly the trou ble just now. They had been falling off every town they had played of late Last night the lack of audience was startling. Even Dents good humor waf dampened. There was no obvious req son for such lack of interest save one and Marcia knew only too well what that was.
 Since her marriage eighteen. yeart before she had been the whole show, as Dent expressed it, in whatever they played. Camille" "Molly Bawn' ol the gayer, more modern vehicles which they paid royalties on-she centeret attention upon her self, and held it She had stepped from a dramatic schoo upon the stage when. she married Dent and her method, like her beauty, wal fresh and convincing. She could have made good play alls by herself witt only blocks of wood to support her Dent for a time had been a good "oppo site," but he had grown stout, and now a younger man had taken his place whil, he played the part of father, brother, ol even grandfather to the star, For 6 long time she had been able to deceiv, as to her real maturity. She was ex quisitely 1.-the and blond, and wher she shook her silken curls over hel face she. looked entranoing enough tc lure the fancy of youths. But ar illness accompanied by fever had mad, her hair fall out and all the dieting ir the world could no longer keep dowr her flesh. She was nearly 40 and coulC no longer conceal the fact.