!"

"That's right," said Pa. "Make her work!"

And, just to show Lily what work meant and that her Pa was not so unkind
after all--"It's for your good, Lily! You'll thank me one of these
days!"--he took her to the stage, where Ave Maria was practising. Now, of
course, in the circuses, Lily, occasionally, had seen children knocked and
cut about with blows and trained to say, "It was the cat," when any one
asked them about the marks. They were ordinary children; she had rolled
about in the sawdust with them, played hide-and-seek with them in the
fields of Indian corn; they were children who romped and ran about and
laughed. Ave Maria was different. The brother, a savage, scowling brute,
was always after her, harrying her with muttered threats. She was in a
constant, visible tremble of fear; and, if she slipped on her wire, the
fellow snarled as if to bite her in the foot, pinched her black and blue,
restored her balance with a blow of the belt, shook the supports to make
her fall just to see!...

"Oh, Pa, he'll kill her!" whispered Lily, when she saw Ave Maria
practising.

"It's none of our damned business," replied Pa curtly.

Martello's evil example ended by catching hold of Pa: that's how artistes
were formed, damn it! And, at the thought of the time wasted, he clenched
his fists. To have a Lily of his own, all his own, and to have made
nothing out of her yet! Still, it was not Lily's fault. Yes, though, it
was her fault, she was so stubborn, so wilful! When he told her to do a
thing, why not do it? Instead of bleating:

"Pa, I can't! Pa, I can't!"

A brief struggle, in a way, followed between Lily and her Pa. Lily was not
built for passive obedience, wasn't used to it. She no longer knew her Pa.
When he came at her with his hand lifted to strike, when he spoke of
unbuckling his belt--"Damn those blasted brats!"--Lily eyed him with a
look of anguish:

"But Pa, I'm not Ave Maria!" she said. "I'm not a Dago."

And she raised her little rebellious face to him. He humbled her with a
smack on the cheek:

"On the saddle! Up! Quick!"

The child, mastered by her Pa's strength and energy, ceased to be the
spoiled child, became an artiste.... Head on the saddle, back-wheel: just
like Trampy! Pooh, Trampy, after a few months of this life, was nowhere,
Clifton admired him less and less, Lily was doing all that he did, more
than he did; and without a fault, without a hitch, unerring and exact! Pa
swelled with pride at