her, Joe!

"He held his peace until the wanderer found his way along the darkening
path to that pathetic stretch of freshly broken earth, where, with an
exceeding bitter cry, he flung his arms above his head and fell all his
length along the grave that held the sweetest and the holiest thing God
had ever given him, an honest, loving mother, and clutched the damp clods
in his burning hands, and gasped out: 'Oh, mother! I have hungered and I
have tramped with the curse upon me, too; I have hungered and tramped so
far, so far, hoping just to be in time to see your dear face once more,
and now they've shut you away from me, from the bad boy you never turned
your patient eyes away from! Oh, mother! whatever can I do without you,
all alone! all alone!'

"At that child-like cry from the broken man, prostrate on the grave,
Lawrence Barrett's heart turned to water, and kneeling down he lifted to
his breast the tear-blurred, drink-blemished face of his brother, and
kissed him as his mother might have done. Thus they prayed together for
the repose of the soul of their beloved, and then, with his arm about the
wanderer, to steady his failing steps, Lawrence led him to his little
home, and, as they entered, he turned and said: 'Joe, can't you take back
those words, "all alone," can't you?' and Joe nodded his head, and
throwing his arms about his brother's neck, answered: 'Never alone, while
my little brother Larry lives and forgives!'"

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH

I play "Marie" to Oblige--Mr. Barrett's Remarkable Call--Did I Receive
a Message from the Dying or the Dead?

From the time when, as a ballet-girl, I was called forward and given the
part of _Marie_ in "The Marble Heart," a play Mr. Barrett was starring
in, to the then distant day of that really splendid combination with Mr.
Edwin Booth, I never saw the former when he was not burning with
excitement over some production he had in mind, if not yet in rehearsal.
Even in his sleep he saw perfect pictures of scenery not yet painted,
just as before "Ganalon" he used to dream of sharp lance and gay pennon
moving in serried ranks, of long lines of nobles and gentlemen who wore
the Cross of the Crusader.

His friends were among the highest of God's Aristocracy of Brains--'twas
odd that sculptors, artists, poets, thinkers should strike hands with so
"cold" a man and call him friend!

I remember well the dismayed look that came upon his face when I was
ordered from t