say it here and now, when you and Mr.
Brown, the only friends I have on earth, are standing by. Think for me,
Eliza, and you also, my kind, kind guardian!"

"Ah, if I had the power," said Brown, answering Eliza's appealing look
with a mournful shake of the head; "but the madame will never give her
up."

"She must," said Caroline, kindling with desperate opposition: "I am not
her slave. God does not give up the soul and conscience of a child to
her mother."

"Especially one who never did a thing for her child, but left her for
others to bring up," broke in Eliza, uttering a bitter truth, in her
angry pity for the girl. "Mr. Brown, all that I have got to say is this:
you and I must stand by this young cretur, let her do what she will. She
is more our child than hers. I stand by that. If she don't want to put
on this splendiferous dress again, why it shall not come within a rod of
her. If her heart is set against singing on the stage, we are not the
people to see her dragged there against her will. You stand by me, I'll
stand by you, and we'll roll ourselves like a rock in that woman's way,
if she attempts to force our child into the theatre again."

"But how can we oppose her? She has the power. We have not, at this
moment, five pounds among us."

Eliza's face fell as if it had been suddenly unlocked.

"No more we have, and in a strange country, too," she said, dolefully.

Here Caroline joined in.

"But I can teach. If I please all those people, surely I can teach."

"Sure enough!" said Eliza, brightening a little. "What do you say to
that, Mr. Brown?"

"We must take time. Perhaps there will be no cause for trouble. When it
comes in earnest, you shall not fight alone, Eliza. So comfort yourself,
my child. The old man would rather beg for bread on the highway than see
you forced to anything that is so distasteful. Now try and sleep."

Brown bent down and smoothed the girl's hair with his hand. Then he
turned from her with tears in his eyes, and crept out of the room.

Caroline followed him with wistful eyes until the door closed. Then she
turned to Eliza.

"Oh! Eliza, do this one thing for me, if you can. Let, let no one come
in to-night. I can endure no more."

"They'll have to knock me down and trample on me if they do, that is
all," answered the hand-maiden. "My gracious! How I wish we were in our
own little house again up in Sing-Sing."

"Oh! if we were!" sighed the girl. "Why did we ever leave it?"