end of
the street was a rubbish shoot. Without knowing why, she stood still,
and then she had an object lesson on the futility of all earthly things.
For on the rubbish heap lay a post-card, and on the post-card was her
picture in the part of Carmen.

She walked away quickly, suppressing her tears. She came to a little
side street, and stopped before a stationer's shop. It had been her
custom to look at the shop windows to see whether her portrait was
exhibited. But it was not exhibited here; instead of that her eyes fell
on a text and she read it, unconsciously:

"The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the
remembrance of them from the earth."

Them that do evil! That was the reason why her memory was blotted out.
That was the explanation of the forgetfulness of men.

"But is it not possible to undo the wrong I have done?" she moaned.
"Have I not been sufficiently punished?"

And she wandered in the direction of the wood, where she was not likely
to meet anybody. And as she was walking along, crushed, humiliated, her
heart full of despair, she met another lonely being, who stopped her as
she was going to pass him. His eyes begged permission to speak to her.

It was the conductor. But his eyes did not reproach her, nor did they
pity her, they only expressed admiration, admiration and tenderness.

"How beautiful and slender you have grown, Hannah," he said.

She looked at herself, and she could not help admitting that he
was right. Grief had burnt all her superfluous fat and she was more
beautiful than she had ever been.

"And you look as young as ever! Younger!"

It was the first kind word which she had heard for many a day; and since
it had been spoken by him whom she had wronged, she realised what a
splendid character he had, and said so.

"I hope you haven't lost your voice?" asked the conductor, who could not
bear flattery.

"I don't know," she sobbed.

"Come to me to-morrow... yes, come to the Opera-house, and then we shall
see. I am conducting there...."

The singer went, not once or twice, but many times, and regained her
former position.

The public had forgiven and forgotten all the evil she had done. And she
became greater and more famous than she had been before.

Isn't that an edifying story?

THE STORY OF THE ST. GOTTHARD

It was Saturday night in Goeschenen, in the canton of Uri, that part of
Switzerland which William Tell and Walter Fuerst have made fa