hout a swift dampening
down. Elaborately dressed as to hair, all the rest of my little best was
singularly plain for the opera. Still I was happy enough and greatly
excited over our promised treat.

Mother and I set out to go to Miss Linda Dietz's home, where we were to
pick her up, and, under escort of her brother, go over to the Academy of
Music. We could not afford a carriage, so we had to take one of the
'busses then in existence. Mr. Daly had sent me, with my box tickets, a
pair of white gloves, and with extreme carefulness I placed them in my
pocket, drawing on an old pair to wear down to Fifteenth Street, where I
would don the new ones at Miss Dietz's house. How I blessed my
fore-thought later on!

Long skirts were worn, so were bustles. A man in the omnibus was in
liquor; he sat opposite me, right by the door. I signaled to stop. Mother
passed out before me--I descended. The man's feet were on my dress-skirt.
I tried to pull it free--he stupidly pulled in the door. The 'bus
started--I was flung to the pavement!

I threw my head back violently to save my face from the cobbles, my hands
and one knee were beating the cruel stones. Mother screamed to the
driver, a gentleman sprang to the horses, stopped them, picked me up, and
even then had to thrust the drunken man's feet from my torn flounce. I
had faintly whispered: "My glass--my fan!" and the gentleman, placing me
in mother's arms, went out into the street and found them for me. I sat
on a bench in the Park: I was shaken and bruised and torn and muddy, but
I would not go home--not I, I was going to hear Parepa and Wachtel!

The gentleman simply would not leave us; he gave me his arm to Miss
Dietz's house, and I needed its aid, for each moment proved I was worse
hurt than I had at first thought. There, however, when with my heartiest
thanks we parted from our good Samaritan, the Dietz family, with dismayed
faces, received us. They were kindness personified. I was sponged and
arnicaed and plastered and sewed and brushed, and at last my ankle's hurt
being acknowledged, it was tightly bound. The new white gloves safely
came forth, and "Dietzie and Morrie" (our nicknames for each other) set
forth, with brother Frank and mother in attendance, and arrived at the
crowded Academy just as the curtain rose. We went quite wild with delight
over the old moss-draped "Il Trovatore." I broke my only handsome
fan--applauding. Suddenly "Dietzie" saw me whiten--saw me close my