ctor, and he went to California and
never came back. She's a dear good woman, and treats us like her
daughters.'

"'How many of you board here?'

"'Thirteen. All of them are high-priced dancers--no ballet and utility
girls here. No, _sir_! We pay $10 to $15 a week for board. She treats
us like her own family.'

"Miss Bell then suggested a tour of the house, offering to be the guide
of such an exploration. Tripping down stairs with the elastic hop of a
bird, she knocked at the door of the lower front chamber, and immediately
ushered her companion into the room. It was large and elegant, and in
exquisite order. One really beautiful girl was driving a sewing-machine
before a window with the industry of a seamstress. Another was engaged
in trimming a tiny pair of satin boots with beads of every color. She
was short, small, and swarthy, her chief beauty being a languishing pair
of black eyes. A third lay at full length on a small bed in an alcove,
reading _Harper's Bazaar_ with the avidity of a milliner, or a lady of
fashion. She was exceedingly pretty and ladylike. Two of them wore the
inevitable white wrapper, while the third was fully dressed in a simple
gray walking-suit. The lovely creature at the sewing-machine was Miss
Ethel Lynn of the 'Lyceum;' the swarthy girl was Miss Lottie Taylor of
the 'Gaiety,' and the third was another Miss Lynn, pseudo-sister of
Ethel, with whom she 'worked,' but in reality a no-relation named Ellis.
The three girls smiled prettily enough on learning their visitor's
object, and the recumbent beauty regretted that it was impossible, under
the circumstances, to publish a picture of the scene.

"The next room was occupied by 'a very great swell,' the premiere
danseuse of the 'Lyceum'. It contained a superb piano littered with
stage properties, dresses, and general odds and ends. The furniture was
of splendid quality, and large tinted photographs of prominent French
'professionals,' including an unusually prepossessing likeness of
Schneider, decked the walls. Satin tights, exquisitely pink, hung out of
a half-open trunk. The danseuse was seated at a small table, her own
profuse golden hair coiled after an indolent fashion, while her diamonded
fingers were hard at work saturating some superb yellow tresses in a
saucerful of colorless fluid, a bleaching agent for continuing the lustre
of blond hair. A clamorous parrot trolled a bar or two of _'Un Mari
Sage'_ overhead, and a