ssions for exploiting precocious children on the stage; they are
very clever in evading the law. The children themselves are helpless. I
had looked up a good many cases before this because it was in my line of
work, and in this particular one I found that the child had been
orphaned in Ireland almost from her birth; that an aunt, without
relatives, had emigrated with her only a few months before I saw her on
the stage, and the two had lived in an east side tenement with an old
Italian. The child's aunt, a young woman about twenty-eight, developed
quick consumption during the winter and died in the care of the Italian,
Nonna Lisa they call her. This woman cared for the little girl, and
began to take her out with her early in March on the avenues and streets
of the upper west side. The old woman is an itinerant musician and plays
the guitar with real feeling--I've heard her--and, by the way, makes a
decent little living of her own. She found that Aileen had a good voice
and could sing several Irish songs. She learned the accompaniments, and
the two led, so far as I can discover, a delightful life of vagabondage
for several weeks. It seems the old Italian has a grandson, Luigi, who
sings in vaudeville with a travelling troop. He was in the west and
south during the entire time that Aileen was with his grandmother; and
through her letters he learned of the little girl's voice. He spoke of
this to his manager, and he communicated with the manager of a Broadway
vaudeville--they are both in the vaudeville trust--and asked him to
engage her, and retain her for the troop when they should start on their
annual autumn tour. But Nonna Lisa was shrewd.--It's wonderful, Mrs.
Googe, how quickly they develop the sixth sense of cautious speculation
after landing! She made a contract for six weeks only, hoping to raise
her price in the autumn. So I found that the child was not being
exploited, except legitimately, by the old Italian who was caring for
her and guarding her from all contamination. But, of course, that could
not go on, and I had the little girl placed in the orphan asylum on
----nd Street--" He interrupted himself to say half apologetically:

"I am prolix, I fear, but I am hoping you will be personally interested
in this child whose future life will, I trust, be spent here far away
from the metropolitan snares. I am sure she is worth your interest."

"I know she is," said Champney emphatically; "and the more we know of
her