enough to take all the dance out of one's feet. With frowning
brows and thin lips tightly compressed, she attacked the figures with
such fell determination to do them right or die, that one could hardly
help hoping she _would_ make a mistake and take the consequences. The
other,--the woolly-brained young person,--having absolutely no ear for
music or time, silently but vigorously worked her jaws through the
chorus, and affably ambled about, under everybody's feet, through the
dance, displaying all the stiff-kneed grace of a young, well-meaning
calf.

When we were in our room, I told Semantha how well she had sung and
danced, and her face was radiant with delight. Then becoming very grave,
she said: "Oh, fraeulein, how I vant to be an actor! Not a common van,
but" and she laid her hand with a childish gesture on her breast--"I
vant to be a big actor. Don' you tink I can ever be von--eh?"

And looking into those bright, intelligent, squirrel-like eyes, I
answered, "I think it is very likely," Poor Semantha! we were to recall
those simple remarks, later on.

Christmas being near, I was very busy working between acts upon
something intended for a present to my mother. This work was greatly
admired by all the girls; but never shall I forget the astonishment of
poor Semantha when she learned for whom it was intended.

"Your mutter lets you love her yet--you would dare?" And as I only gazed
dumbly at her, she went on, while slow tears gathered in her eyes, "My
mutter hasn't let me love her since--since I vas big enough to be
knocked over."

Through the talkativeness of an extra night-hand or scene-shifter, who
knew her family, I learned something of poor Semantha's private life.
Poor child! from the very first she had rested her bright brown eyes
upon the wrong side of life,--the seamy side,--and her own personal
share of the rough patchwork, composed of dismal drabs and sodden browns
and greens, had in it just one small patch of rich and brilliant
colour,--the theatre. Of the pure tints of sky and field and watery
waste and fruit and flower, she knew nothing. But what of that! had she
not secured this bit of rosy radiance, and might it not in time be added
to, until it should incarnadine the whole fabric of her life?

Semantha's father was dead; her mother was living--worse luck. For had
she been but a memory, Semantha would have been free to love and
reverence that memory, and it might have been as a very strong staff