attic, working your fingers to the bone, than she in her gilded salon--I
think "gilded salon" was the term, was it not?--furnished by sin.
But speaking of yourself, weak little sister doll, not of your fine
speeches, the gallery listening, did you not, in your secret heart,
envy her? Did you never, before blowing out the one candle, stand for
a minute in front of the cracked glass, and think to yourself that
you, too, would look well in low-cut dresses from Paris, the diamonds
flashing on your white smooth skin? Did you never, toiling home through
the mud, bearing your bundle of needlework, feel bitter with the wages
of virtue, as she splashed you, passing by in her carriage? Alone, over
your cup of weak tea, did you never feel tempted to pay the price for
champagne suppers, and gaiety, and admiration? Ah, yes, it is easy
for folks who have had their good time, to prepare copybooks for weary
little inkstained fingers, longing for play. The fine maxims sound such
cant when we are in that mood, do they not? You, too, were young and
handsome: did the author of the play think you were never hungry for the
good things of life? Did he think that reading tracts to crotchety old
women was joy to a full-blooded girl in her twenties? Why should SHE
have all the love, and all the laughter? How fortunate that the villain,
the Wicked Baronet, never opened the cottage door at that moment, eh,
dear! He always came when you were strong, when you felt that you could
denounce him, and scorn his temptations. Would that the villain came
to all of us at such time; then we would all, perhaps, be heroes and
heroines.

Ah well, it was only a play: it is over now. You and I, little tired
dolls, lying here side by side, waiting to know our next part, we can
look back and laugh. Where is she, this wicked dolly, that made such a
stir on our tiny stage? Ah, here you are, Madam; I thought you could
not be far; they have thrown us all into this corner together. But how
changed you are, Dolly: your paint rubbed off, your golden hair worn to
a wisp. No wonder; it was a trying part you had to play. How tired you
must have grown of the glare and the glitter! And even hope was denied
you. The peace you so longed for you knew you had lost the power to
enjoy. Like the girl bewitched in the fairy tale, you knew you must
dance ever faster and faster, with limbs growing palsied, with face
growing ashen, and hair growing grey, till Death should come to release