itted
themselves.

Yet Sissy, who was tying the ribbons on Split's tambourine, looked in
vain for a reflection of that fever of delight which possessed herself.
Split was cross. She was languid. She was dull. She did not seem to
enjoy even the pair of slippers she was pulling on. They had been given
to Sissy by Henrietta Blind-Staggers, and their newness and beauty had
tempted the poor Zingara. But if Sissy had not felt that the family
fortunes were at stake, as she always did in the matter of a public
appearance, she would never have made so generous an offer of her
cherished property.

"But they seem awful tight, Split," she suggested.

"They're nothing of the sort," snapped Split, wincing as she rose to her
feet.

"I don't see how you're going to dance in them."

"Will you just leave that to me, Miss Cecilia Morgan Madigan, and mind
your own business?"

[Illustration:
"'I don't see how you're going to dance in them'"]

Deeply offended, Sissy withdrew. No one called her Cecilia Morgan
Madigan who did not want to wound her to the soul and remind her of an
incident it were more generous to forget. She went out to the wings and
stood there looking upon the stage and Professor Trask, who, as the
Recluse, was gowned in mysterious flowing black, while he chanted "Here
would I rest" in a hollow bass. But Sissy was worried. Not even being
behind the scenes could still her apprehensions about Split. She longed
to confide in some fellow-Madigan, but Kate was on the other side of the
stage, and to all her winks and beckonings turned an uninterested back.
Then, all at once, sooner than she expected, the Recluse departed, the
scenes shifted; there, alone on the stage, looking white in the glare of
the footlights, was a bedizened, big-eyed, panting little Zingara, and
the syncopated prelude began.

Sissy's fingers thrummed it sympathetically upon her knee, but Trask,
who was playing the accompaniment behind the scenes, had put an
unfamiliar accent upon the notes. Out on the stage the Zingara was
beating her tambourine sadly out of time and was longing, with a panicky
fear, for the familiar touch of Sissy's hand upon the piano.

"Dum--dum-de-dum-dum--dum-dum--dum-dum!"

The notes came like a warning signal. The Zingara's throat was parched,
her feet ached excruciatingly merely from carrying her weight--how, oh,
how was she going to dance?

"Dum--dum-de-dum-dum--dum-dum--dum-dum!"

The last note prolonged its