r own skirts, and at need could scrub her own
floor. Her face (my description following my wandering glance)--her
face was careworn, almost to desuetude; not dissipation-worn, as,
alas! the faces of the more gifted ladies of opera troupes too often
are. There was no fattening in it of pastry, truffles, and bonbons;
upon it none of the tracery left by nightly champagne tides and
ripples; and consequently her figure, under her plain dress, had not
that for display which the world has conventioned to call charms.
Where a window-cord would hardly have sufficed to girdle _Leonore_, a
necklace would have served her. She had not beauty enough to fear the
flattering dangers of masculine snares and temptations,--or there may
have been other reasons,--but as a wife--there was something about her
that guaranteed it--she would have blossomed love and children as a
fig-tree does figs.

In truth, she was just talking about children. The first part of her
story had passed: her birthplace, education, situation; and now she
was saying:

"I have always had the temptation, but I have always resisted it.
Now,"--with a blush at her excuse,--"it may be your spring weather,
your birds, your flowers, your sky--and your children in the streets.
The longing came over me yesterday: I thought of it on the stage,
I thought of it afterward--it was better than sleeping; and this
morning"--her eyes moistened, she breathed excitedly--"I was
determined. I gave up, I made inquiry, I was sent to you. Would it be
possible? Would there be any place" ("any role," she said first) "in
any of your asylums, in any of your charitable institutions, for me?
I would ask nothing but my clothes and food, and very little of that;
the recompense would be the children--the little girl children," with
a smile--can you imagine the smile of a woman dreaming of children
that might be? "Think! Never to have held a child in my arms more than
a moment, never to have felt a child's arms about my neck! Never to
have known a child! Born on a stage, my mother born on a stage!" Ah,
there were tragic possibilities in that voice and movement! "Pardon,
madam. You see how I repeat. And you must be very wearied hearing
about me. But I could be their nurse and their servant. I would bathe
and dress them, play with them, teach them their prayers; and when
they are sick they would see no difference. They would not know but
what their mother was there!"

Oh, she had her program all prepa