uarreled, of course, over trifles, but May was the only person to
whom Jenny would behave as if she were sorry for anything she had done
or said. She never admitted her penitence in word to anybody on earth.
It was a pleasure to Mrs. Raeburn, this fondness of Jenny for May, and
once in a rare moment of confidence, she told the elder child that she
depended on her to look after May when she herself was gone.

"With her poor little back she won't ever be able to earn her
living--not properly, and when you're on the stage and getting good
money, you mustn't leave May out in the cold."

Here was something vital, a tangible appeal, not a sentiment broadly
expressed without obvious application like the culminating line of a
hymn. Here was a reason, and Jenny clung fast to it as a drowning
seafarer will clutch at samphire, unconscious of anything save greenery
and blessed land. People were not accustomed to give Jenny reasons. When
she had one, usually self-evolved, she held fast to it, nor cared a jot
about its possible insecurity. Reasons were infrequent bits of greenery
to one battered by a monotonous and empty ocean; for Jenny's mind was
indeed sea-water with the flotsam of wrecked information, with wonderful
hues evanescent, with the sparkle and ripple of momentary joys, with the
perpetual booming of discontent, sterile and unharvested.

One breezy June day, much the same sort of day as that when Jenny danced
under the plane-tree, Madame Aldavini told her she could give her a
place as one of the quartette of dancers in a Glasgow pantomime.

"But, listen," said Madame, "what they want is acrobatic dancing. If you
join this quartette, it does not mean you give up dancing--ballet-dancing,
you understand; you will come back to me when the pantomime is over
until you are able to join the Ballet at Covent Garden. You will not
degrade your talent by sprawling over shoulders, by handsprings and
splits and the tricks which an English audience likes. You understand?"

Jenny did not really understand anything beyond the glorious fact that
in December she would be away from Hagworth Street and free at last to
do just as she liked.

Mrs. Raeburn, when she heard of the proposal, declined to entertain its
possibility. It was useless for Jenny to sulk and slam doors, and demand
furiously why she had been allowed to learn dancing if she was not to be
allowed ever to make a public appearance.

"Time enough for that in the future," sa