that they never thought of their poverty,
but redoubled their caresses when they had nothing to eat, not even an
unripe apple stolen from an orchard, nor a lump of bread which they had
begged on the road, of some charitable soul. And they embraced each
other more ardently still, when they were obliged to stop for the night
in the open country, and shivered in the old, badly-closed vans, and had
to be very sparing with the wood, and could not illuminate the snow with
those large bivouac fires, whose smoke rises in such fantastic, spiral
curls, and whose flames look like a spot of blood, at a distance, seen
through the mist.

"It was one of those Bohemian quasi-matrimonial arrangements, which are
often more enduring than ours, and in which a man and a woman do not
part for a mere caprice, a dream, or a piece of folly.

"But by-and-bye she was no longer good for anything, and had to give up
appearing on the program, for she was in the family way. James Stirling
worked for both, and thought that he should die of grief when she was
brought to bed, and after three days of intense suffering, died with her
hand in his.

"And now, all alone, crushed by grief, so ill that at times he thought
his heart had stopped, the circus rider lived for the child which the
dead woman had left him as a legacy. He bought a goat, so that it might
have pure milk, and brought it up with such infinite, deep, womanly
tenderness, that the child called him 'Mamma,' and in the circus they
nick-named him: _Mamma Stirling_.

"The boy was like his mother, and one might have said that he had
brought James luck, for he had made his mark, was receiving a good
income, and appeared in every performance. Well-made and agile, and
profiting by the lessons which he received at the circus, little
Stirling was soon fit to appear on the posters, and the night when he
made his first appearance at Franconi's, old Tom Pears, the clown, who
understood such matters better than most, exclaimed: 'My boy, you will
make your way, if you don't break your neck first!' 'I will take care of
that, Monsieur Pears,' the lad replied, with a careless shrug of the
shoulder.

"He was extremely daring, and when he threw himself from one trapeze to
the other, in a bold flight through the air, one might almost have
fancied in the silvery electric light, that he was some fabulous bird
with folded wings, and he executed all his feats with unequalled,
natural grace, without seeming to