is great sea of people who were
waiting for her to appear that they might subject her to scathing
criticism.

Herr Deichenberg smiled in at the door a moment later.

"Und how iss my little lady?" he inquired.

"Oh, Herr, I have such a strange sensation. It seems as if my heart
is going to stop beating."

"Ah, ha! You t'ink so, but it iss not so, Miss Dorothy. De heart has
changed its place of residence--dat iss all. It is now lodged in de
mouth, vhere it vill stay until you get before de audience und
realize dat you vill have to play. Den it vill leave you."

"If I could only be sure!"

"Vhat I tell you iss true. I have been there, many iss de time. You
vill find dat de audience vill be your inspiration."

Shortly after, when the orchestra was in the last bars of the
overture, the music master hurried Dorothy out of her dressing-room
to her place in the wings. The sinking feeling grew more intense. She
could not get her mind off the ordeal which was before her. If she
had only agreed not to come, she argued with herself, she might have
saved her reputation. But now the merciless critics of the metropolis
would subject her to comparisons with greater and more famous
artists, and she would surely be the loser thereby. Strange she had
not thought of that before!

She was startled out of her meditation by Herr Deichenberg, who
cried:

"Ready, now, young lady! Look your prettiest! Valk out as you did
before, und forget there iss an audience. Take your time und vait
till de orchestra iss t'rough with de introduction."

She nodded, her lower lip trembling visibly. Then, with a sudden
shake of her head, she forced a smile and stepped out into view of
the audience!

And as those staid old New Yorkers saw this slim, young girl
advancing, violin in hand, toward the footlights, while the great
orchestra roared and thundered through the introduction to
Rubenstein's "Barcarole," they burst into a round of applause. And
Dorothy, surprised at the reception thus accorded her, when she had
expected nothing but silence and curious stares, all but stopped in
the center of the stage and forgot what she was doing.

Then, realizing that the orchestra was rapidly approaching the place
where she was to begin playing, she had the presence of mind to bow
and smile. And just back of the footlights, with the faces of her
auditors but a blurred spot on her vision, the girl put her violin
under her chin and gently drew the bow across