curtain bell sounded. Then Edith Brownlie looked decidedly miserable as
"The Queen was in the Kitchen, Eating Bread and Honey." She liked Tom
Scott--everybody knew that--and now Tom, in addition to having lately
favored Dorothy, had kissed Agnes! Of course, the girls, and boys too,
teased the sensitive Edith, and she lost interest in her picture.

Dorothy breathed a sigh of relief when Mary Mahon's number was announced.
Mary was actually quivering with excitement. She wanted to act, and
Dorothy was confident that she would do well.

Her recitation was entitled "Guilty or Not Guilty?" and as she stepped out
and made her bow, the house was hushed in silence. In a plaintive voice
she began that well-known poem:

"She stood at the bar of justice,
A creature wan and wild,
In form too young for a woman,
In feature too old for a child."

How the lines seemed to suit her! Surely the features of Mary were too old
for those of a child. Her face had a drawn, pinched look, and her eyes
were so deeply set.

But the pathos of her voice! When she pleaded with the judge for mercy
against the charge that she was a thief she mentioned the starving
children.

"I took--oh, was it stealing?--
The bread to give to them!"

The women pressed their handkerchiefs to their eyes. There was something
almost too real in the child's plea. Who was she? they asked. A
professional?

Dorothy was delighted at Mary's success. The girl was her "find," and it
was she who had taught her how to use her voice so well in the pathetic
lines. True, she found an apt pupil in Mary, and Dorothy was but too glad
to accord her the entire triumph, when the recitationist bowed again in
response to the hearty applause and retired.

A gentleman in the audience left his chair, and, walking over, spoke to
Mrs. White. He was Dr. Baker, one of the hospital staff.

"I think I know that child," he said. "Does she not live with an aged
couple named Manning?"

"I believe she does," replied Mrs. White, making a place for Dr. Baker to
sit down beside her. "My niece Dorothy is much interested in the
child--she seems to have a faculty for discovering genius, has Dorothy."

"Well, I have not seen little Mary for some years, but there is no
mistaking her. Her mother, an actress, died in one of the charity wards of
the hospital, and I am afraid the child has inherited the fatal malady
from her mother. She looks now like a consumptive."