. In fact,
you are now a part of the capricious public, my dear," he added in a
jocular tone, "and may applaud the 'heavy father,' myself, or prattle
about prevailing styles while the buskined tragedian is strutting
below your box. Why turn to a blind bargain? Fame is a jade, only
caught after our illusions are gone and she seems not half so sweet as
when pursuing her in our dreams!"

But as he spoke, with forced lightness, beneath which, however, the
young girl could readily detect the vein of anxiety and regret, she
was regarding him with the clear eyes of affection. His face, seamed
with many lines and bearing the deeply engraved handwriting of time,
spoke plainly of declining years; every lineament was eloquent with
vicissitudes endured; and as she discerningly read that varied past of
which her own brief career had been a part, there entered her mind a
brighter picture of a tranquil life for him at last, where in old age
he could exchange uncertainty and activity for security and rest. How
could she refuse to do as he desired? How often since fate had wrought
this change in her life had she asked herself the question?

Her work, it is true, had grown dearer to her than ever; of late she
had thrown herself into her task with an ardor and earnestness lifting
each portrayal to a higher plane. Is it that only with sorrow comes
the fulness of art; that its golden gates are never swung entirely
open to the soul bearing no burden?

Closed to ruder buffetings, is it only to the sesame of a sad voice
those portals spring magically back? But for his sake she must needs
pause on the threshold of attainment, and stifle that ambition which
of itself precluded consideration of a calm, uneventful existence. She
was young and full of courage, but the pathos of his years smote her
heart; something inexplicable had awakened her fears for him; she
believed him far from well of late, although he laughed at her
apprehensions and protested he had never been better in his life.

Now, reading the anxiety in his face as he watched her, she smiled
reassuringly, her glance, full of love, meeting his.

"Everything shall be as you wish," she said, softly. "You know what is
best!"

The manager's face lighted perceptibly, but before he could answer,
the door opened, and Culver, the attorney, entered. With ruddy
countenance and youthful bearing, in antithesis to the hair,
silvered with white, he was one of those southern gentlemen who grow