r, she seemed to have her heart set on ours. She begged me
to make a little gentleman out of him."

"As if you could ever do that!"

"Why not?" asked Mary, their niece.

"That dreadful child!"

"Freddy isn't dreadful!" cried Mary hotly.

"With that atrocious slang! Won't eat his oatmeal! And he's such a
queer child--queer! So pale, never laughs, doesn't like any one. Why
should you take up for him? He doesn't even like you. Hates me, I
suppose."

"It's because we are so different from the women he has known," said
Mary.

"I should hope so! Well, sister, what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't know what to do," sighed Miss Nellie. "He hasn't any other
relatives as far as I know. And the summer coming on, what shall we
do?"

"Nothing for it but to send him to an orphanage if she doesn't write
soon," said Miss Eva.

"Oh, auntie, you wouldn't!"

"Why not? How can we afford to give children free board and
education?"

"It's only one child."

"It would be a dozen, if we once started it."

"I'll wait another month," said Miss Nellie, "and then, really,
something will have to be done."

The girl looked out of the window.

"There he is now," she said, "sitting on the stone wall at the end of
the garden. It's his favourite spot."

"What on earth he wants to sit there for--away from all the other
children! He never plays. Look at him! Just sitting there--not moving.
How stupid!" exclaimed Miss Eva impatiently.

"I do declare, I believe he's fallen asleep," said Miss Nellie.

Freddy was not asleep. He had only to close his eyes and it would all
come back to him. Memories that he could not put into words,
sensations without definite thought, crowded in upon him. The
smell--the thick smell of grease paint, choking powder, dust, gas, old
walls, bodies, and breath, and sharp perfume; the sickening,
delicious, stale, enchanting, never-to-be-forgotten odour of the
theatre; the nerves' sudden tension at the cry of "Ov-a-chure"; their
tingling as the jaded music blares; the lift of the heart as the
curtain rises; the catch in the throat as Florette runs on to do her
turn.

Florette was a performer on the trapeze in vaudeville. Her figure was
perfect from the strenuous daily exercise. She was small, young, and a
shade too blonde. First she appeared in a sort of blue evening dress,
except that it was shorter even than a d butante's. She ran out
quickly from the wings, bowed excessively, smiled appealingly,