s. Mr. Brown was my friend, my only
friend, long before--before you came and took me away from my poor
little home. If you could make me think ill of him, would it be kind?"

"But he has been treacherous; he has taught you hatred of the profession
which you were so crazy for at one time."

"No, no; it was not Mr. Brown. I saw for myself."

"Yes, the dark side; never in its brightness or its glory. But you
shall, you shall."

Caroline lay back upon her pillow and covered her face with one hand.
The sight of that beautiful woman, so hard in her resolve, so completely
ignoring all feelings but her own, was hateful to her.

"Please let me rest to-night," she pleaded.

"To-night, yes. It is enough that you understand me now; but, after
this, I shall expect no opposition. If you are so stupidly ignorant of
the power which lies in your own beauty and genius, I am not. So try and
come to your senses before morning. Good-night."

The woman went out, with her head aloft, and her cloak trailing behind
her, for, in her excitement, she had flung it away from one shoulder,
that she might gesticulate with the arm that was free.

Caroline turned upon her pillow and cried bitterly till morning.

Olympia was right. The girl had been scrupulously kept from all society
that her freshness might be preserved, and her education completed.

She had been to the theatres, here and there, when some new piece was
presented, but it was rather as a study than an amusement; and after a
knowledge of the public idol in private life had slowly swept away all
the romance of their first meeting, the innate coarseness of this
beautiful, selfish woman was not long in revealing itself to the
pure-minded girl, who soon began to grieve that she could not love and
still admire the mother she had at first almost worshipped. Olympia, who
had found it easy enough to dictate to managers, and oppress
subordinates, had far different material to act upon when she broke in
upon the midnight sleep of the girl Daniel Yates had grounded in the
nobility of true womanhood.

The next day, being Sunday, was Olympia's great day of rest and
amusement. She slept till long after mid-day, ate an epicurean breakfast
in a little dressing-room with rose-tinted draperies, ran lazily over
the pages of some French novel, in the silken depths of a pretty Turkish
divan, heaped up with cushions, till long after dark; then threw herself
into the mysteries of a superb toilet, and