She turned quickly, reached up and put her arms about his neck, burying her face on his breast, where she wept, while he vainly tried to comfort her.

“Nellie, Nellie, don’t!” he pleaded, his own voice husky. “I can’t bear this! Please don’t—for my sake!”

“For your sake!” she murmured. “For your sake, Frank, I’ll try not to cry. You have been so good to us. Oh, I shall miss you so much! Heaven bless and keep you, Frank! Heaven guide you to Elsie! May you prosper—may you always be happy! I shall pray for you every night!”

“And I shall pray for you, dear little friend,” he said, in his sincere, manly way. “I will write to you often.”

Then they sat down together, hand in hand, and talked of the future.

CHAPTER IX. FRANK’S UNPLEASANT DISCOVERY.

FRANK’S UNPLEASANT DISCOVERY.

A week later Frank had become pretty familiar with his duties. Besides being “manager of properties,” he was the prompter, and he found plenty of work.

He took hold of the new work readily, and Barnaby Haley soon became satisfied that he had made no mistake in engaging him.

The company was “on the road,” playing one-night stands, having abandoned the larger cities.

It was a case of hustle day after day. The moment the show was over at night everything had to be picked up and packed for the morning train.

Frank soon became familiar with all the stuff, so that he knew just where everything belonged, and this enabled him to do the packing swiftly.

A certain amount of special scenery was carried for the piece, and that was the most difficult to handle.

As soon as Merry had taken care of the properties, he was expected to lend his aid in getting the scenery ready for shipment, and thus it came about that he seldom got to bed before one or two o’clock in the morning.

Then it was necessary for him to be up early to see that everything got off right, and, immediately on arriving at a destination, he had to attend to the getting of the baggage to the theater.

Arriving at the theater, he was required to 

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