The members of Custer Lodge could scarcely understand why their little affair was taking so well.

Mr.Harry Quincel was looked upon as quite a star for this sort of work.
By the time the 16th had arrived Hurstwood's friends had rallied like Romans to a senator's call.

A well-dressed, good-natured, flatteringly-inclined audience was assured from the moment he thought of assisting Carrie.
That little student had mastered her part to her own satisfaction, much as she trembled for her fate when she should once face the gathered throng, behind the glare of the footlights.

She tried to console herself with the thought that a score of other persons, men and women, were equally tremulous concerning the outcome of their efforts, but she could not disassociate the general danger from her own individual liability.
She feared that she would forget her lines, that she might be unable to master the feeling which she now felt concerning her own movements in the play.

At times she wished that she had never gone into the affair; at others, she trembled lest she should be paralyzed with fear and stand white and gasping, not knowing what to say and spoiling the entire performance.
In the matter of the company, Mr.Bamberger had disappeared.