her ambition, but being a girl she sought to climb by
the most approved and usual ladder within reach--the stage; for
actresses all married the lovely, rich (often titled) young gentlemen
who sat in rows in the front seats and admired the high-class "stars"
and worshipped the ballerinas and chorus girls, or so at least a great
many people believed, being led astray by certain columns in gossip
newspapers, which doubtless have a colouring of truth inasmuch that
the women of the stage are idealised creatures--idealised by
limelight, and advertised by a pushing management for the benefit of
the box-office.

Now Dawn had ample ability and appearance for success on the stage if
her parents had been there before her, so that she could have grown up
in touch with it, but whether she had sufficient iron and salt to push
her way against the barriers in her pathway I doubted. Only sheer
genius can get to the front in any line of art with which it is not in
touch, and even giant talent is often so mangled in the struggle that
when it wrests recognition it is too spent to maintain the altitude it
has attained at the expense of heart-sweat and blood.

The girl worried me, and it worried me more to think that after all my
experience I was so foolish and sentimental that I could be worried
regarding her. She had a comfortable home, a loving guardian, youth,
health, good appearance, and, to a certain extent, fitted her
surroundings. There was nothing of the ethereally aesthetic about her,
and no stretch of sickly imagination could picture her as pining to be
understood. Notwithstanding this, there was I longing to help her so
much that, in spite of my health and an acquaintance that was only
twelve hours old, I was contemplating entering society for her sweet
sake. The fact was, this little orphan girl who had taken up the life
her mother had laid down at dawn of day nineteen years ago, had
collected my scalp, and was at leave to string it on her belt as that
of an ardent faithful lover who never entertained one unworthy thought
of her, or wavered in affection from the hour she first flashed upon
her.

I desired to save her from such savage disappointment as had blighted
my life, not that she would ever have the capacity to feel my frenzy
of griefs, but remembering my own experience, I was ever anxious to
save other youngsters from the possibilities of a similar fate.

The best disposal to be made of Dawn was to settle her in marr