efficacious in
lending children self-confidence as talent itself.

Kate, therefore, who could not sing a note, but who was grace embodied,
led a chorus of Poppies, whose red tissue-paper garments creaked and
rustled as they swayed, waving their star-tipped wands and chanting
"Breathe we now our charmed fragrance."

Florence and Bessie, whom the curse of being twins linked like
galley-slaves, were Heather-bells in a childish chorus which piped forth
the information "We are the Heather-bells: list to our song," but which
was almost ruined by their common desire to get away from each other and
lead in two different directions.

[Illustration:
"She was pronounced a 'regular little love' by the Misses
Bryne-Stivers"]

Quite self-possessed (even if she was very much off key), Sissy, who was
the best "speaker" in her class, warbled her part of a sanctimonious
little duet in which Heliotrope and Mignonette voiced the sentiment--

"'Tis not in beauty alone we may find
Purity, goodness, and wisdom combined"

Even small Frances, most self-conscious of Madigans, in a costume so
inadequate that Bep's doll would have been scandalized at the idea of
wearing it, posed and attitudinized as a Dewdrop. She was pronounced a
"regular little love" by the Misses Bryne-Stivers, whom the Madigans had
nicknamed the Misses Blind-Staggers--a resentful play upon their
hyphenated name, as well as a delicate reference to their blue goggles
that might have served as blinkers.

For Irene, though, as the unquestioned possessor of a voice, a solo had
been interpolated. She was to repeat, for the first time on the
professional stage, that renowned success in "The Zingara" which school
exhibitions had made famous.

Just before the time came for Split to sing, Sissy was hovering about
the prima donna in the dressing-room. As Miss Heliotrope she wore the
dark-purple gown which Aunt Anne had made over from her own wardrobe.
(Being Comstock-born, Sissy knew no flower intimately, and could easily
be imposed upon as to their habits and colors.) Above it her round
little dark face looked almost sallow, in spite of the excited red that
flamed in her cheeks.

The atmosphere of a theater was like wine to the Madigans. The smell of
escaping gas in the dark was, in itself, enough to transport them by
association of ideas out of the workaday world; and emotion due to a
dramatic situation was the one evidence of sensibility they perm