eyes, and she hid her face in the
pillow.

"You didn't believe me," said the Kapellmeister, "but you see I was
better than my word--I have come myself. Why do you suppose I have
come?"

She lay silent.

"If I hadn't come," he said grimly, "You would be lying in that pool
yonder, by now, broken to pieces against the wheel; and I should have
sought for my bird in vain." He saw how the pillow rose and fell with
her breath, and how she listened.

"I wanted a bird for my Siegfried on Saturday," he went on, "Some one
to sit far aloft in the flies and sing, as you sang this morning, high
and pure, in the middle of the tone. Helmanoff has trained you well,
child, you take the notes as if nature herself had been your teacher.
Neumann is gone; she screeches like an owl! Elle a son conge!" He
continued to look at the pillow and the gold curls spread across it.

"Will you come and be my bird, child? I suppose you can't act as yet;
but up in the flies you will be hidden, and only your prototype will
flutter across the stage on its wires. When I heard you this morning,
I said to myself: 'Ha--my bird at last! Siegfried's bird!'"

He laughed softly, and bent over and stroked the curls: "I came
to-night because the Neumann went off in a huff. She made a scene at
rehearsal, or rather I did. I told her to go and darn stockings for a
living, and she seemed to resent it!" He paused for a moment.
"Saturday is only day after to-morrow--and we have no bird!"

The girl lay motionless, and the Kapellmeister went on stroking her
curls. "If you sing, you will be paid, you know!" he said, "and then
you need not try to kill the poor bird for lack of a crumb. Why didn't
you tell me this morning, little one?"

Kaya raised her head feebly and gazed at him: "My voice is gone!" she
said, "My voice is--gone!"

"Bah!" said the Kapellmeister, "With a throat like that! It is only
beginning to come. The Lehmann's voice was as yours in her youth,
light at first and colorature; and it grew! Mein Gott, how it grew and
deepened, and swelled, and soared!--Get strong, child, and your voice
will ripen like fruit in the sun."

He stooped over the pillow and looked into her eyes: "Come, child," he
said, "Will you be my bird? Promise me! You won't think of that
again--I can trust you? If I leave you now--"

Kaya put out her hands and clung to him suddenly, clasping his arm with
her fingers. "I won't," she said, "I will live, and study