tress of beauty
and genius is sure to excite. For more than a week, now, the prevailing
topic had been this young girl; first the promise of a brilliant debut,
then the momentary triumph and sudden breakdown; now came the news of
her illness, true, in so much that she was seriously ill, but
exaggerated into a romance which gave her out as dying with a shock of a
too sensitive nature.

Olympia sang gloriously to crowded houses. In the romance woven around
this young girl her parentage had been hinted at, and the practiced
woman of the stage had managed to turn the public rumor into popularity
for herself.

She had taken up the opera where Caroline had sunk down, and carried it
triumphantly forward, filling the world with admiration of herself and
sympathy for the girl.

On the morning when Caroline's illness was made public, some young men
were seated in the window of a club-house, and one of them threw down
the Times with an impatient movement.

"So we are not to have this new singer again to-morrow night or the
next," he said. "Here is Olympia's name in the bills, while the other is
ill with something on the brain or nerves."

"All a sham, to enhance the public interest, I dare say," answered
another, taking up the journal. "There is nothing these musical people
will not do for popularity. But it really was not needed here; the girl
has beauty enough to carry her forward, even without her glorious voice.
For my part, I am all in a fever to see her again."

A young man sat in this circle, apparently occupied by the panorama
drifting through the streets. As the conversation went on, the color
came and went in his face, and his eyes began to burn; but he said
nothing, while the others went on:

"Who is the girl? what is her real name? Some say she is an American;
others, that she is Olympia's own daughter, to whom all names are alike;
but, then, where was the woman Olympia born? Now and then a word drops
from the pretty lips which is purely American; but then she has been all
over the world, and has gathered something from all nations, so that one
can never make a true guess about her."

"Does this girl look like her?" inquired one of the young men, who had
not been at the opera last night.

"No, not exactly," was the answer. "She is taller, more queenly, in
fact; quite a different style. This new girl is superb."

"While Olympia is simply bewildering, changeable as the sky, erratic as
a comet. We all underst