a picture of 'The Good
Shepherd,' and I clasped my hands, and cried aloud:

"'O bon Pasteur, help me to free Thy sheep.'

"And lo, a voice seemed to answer: 'Daughter, use the talent
that you have.'

"I rose from my knees knowing what course to pursue. I sought
new opportunities for the display of my one talent, I was more
than successful, I became Narda the prima donna, and won golden
guineas and opinions.

"At last came my opportunity. I was to sing at Bayreuth in
Wagner's glorious opera, I was to sing the Swan Song, and the
Czar was to be present.

"The house was crowded, there was row upon row, tier after tier
of faces, but I saw one only--that of the Czar in his box.

"I stood there before the footlights in shining white, and sang
my song.

"The heavenly music rose and fell, died away and rose again, and
I sang as I had never done before. I sang for home, love, and
child.

"When the curtain fell the Czar sent for me and complimented me
graciously, offering me a diamond ring which I gratefully
refused.

"'Sire,' I said, 'I ask for a gift more costly still.'

"'Is it,' he asked, 'a necklace?'

"'No, sire, it is my husband's pardon. Give my little daughter
her father back.'

"He frowned, hesitated, then said that he would inquire into the
matter.

"Gloria, he did, God be praised! The evidence was sifted, much
of it was found to be false. The pardon was made out. Your
nightingale had sung with her breast against a thorn, 'her song
had been a prayer which Heaven itself had heard.'"

II--ESTELLA: THE HEIRESS.

Her Christian name Estella Marie, her starry eyes and pale, earnest
face, and her tall, lissom figure were the only beautiful things about
Estella Keed. Everything else, dress, home, appointments, were exceeding
plain. For her grandfather in whose house she lived was, though
reputedly wealthy, a miserly man.

He lived in a large and antique house, with hooded windows, in Mercer's
Lane, and was a dealer in antiques and curios. And his popular sobriquet
was Simon the Saver (Anglice, miser).

Stella was the only child of his only son, a clever musician, who had
allied himself with a troupe of wandering minstrels, and married a
Spaniard attached to the company, and who, when he followed his wife
into the silent land, bequeathed his little girl to his father,
beseeching him to overlook the estrangement of years, and befriend the
orphan child. She inherited her name Estella from her Span