he
cradle, and wept over him in the ecstasy of a new-found joy and love;
for it was the _First Smile_ her baby had given her.

CYBELE, THE TAMBOURINE GIRL.

Cybele was a little girl; she had large gray eyes, and brown hair
smoothly parted over her forehead, while there was a pitiful expression
round her mouth, that pleaded with you so earnestly, you could scarce
help stopping, as you met her, to give her a few pennies.

Her real home was not in this country. Long ago she had come over from
the bright land of Italy,--from its warm, sunny skies and beautiful
gardens, where the birds sang so joyfully, and gay music sounded on the
air,--all which she longed to see and hear again; and as all things
there had been so beautiful, and here so dreary, all beauty grew to be
the same thing as that dear Italy, so that when she even saw flowers in
the window of some lordly house, she would stand, gazing tearfully
through them at the far-off home!

Cybele's mother had died in that beautiful land, and it was in one of
its lovely gardens her body rested while her spirit soared heavenward.
The little girl knew this place so well;--the orange-trees grew about
it, and the song of the waterfall, near by, played and sparkled in the
tones of the birds. But Cybele's aunt had taken the little girl with her
to this distant land, and the child could no longer go and weep over the
grave where her mother's body had been laid; but her heart was there--it
could not forget. She dreamed of it in the long nights; and, when she
played upon her tambourine, the remembrance inspired her notes, making
people love to listen to her.

Away down in an uncomfortable, out-of-the-way part of the city dwell a
great many poor people, who have come from distant countries to find
here some bread, which may keep them from starving. The streets where
they dwell are dirty, and the houses look smoky and wretched. There are
queer little shops, with oranges and cigars, bread and tobacco, in the
windows, and if you go in you smell yeast, and see milk-cans standing
about, while a man in a green jacket sells you what you ask for. To such
shops do the people near by come for their bread and cent's worth of
milk. To such a shop little Cybele came, early in the morning, and late
at night; and so dingy looked the shops and people, that her aunt's room
seemed bright and cheerful in comparison. This room, nevertheless, was
small and quite dark, having but one window, whi