miled drowsily and went to
sleep again.

"And who takes care of her now?" he asked.

The woman straightened herself and seemed relieved. She saw that the
stranger had recognized the child's pedigree and knew her story, and
that he was not going to comment on it. "I do," she said. "After the
divorce Ida came to me," she said, speaking more freely. "I used to be
in her company when she was doing 'Aladdin,' and then when I left the
stage and started to keep an actors' boarding-house, she came to me.
She lived on with us a year, until she died, and she made me the
guardian of the child. I train children for the stage, you know, me
and my sister, Ada Dyer; you've heard of her, I guess. The courts pay
us for her keep, but it isn't much, and I'm expecting to get what I
spent on her from what she makes on the stage. Two of them other
children are my pupils; but they can't touch Madie. She is a better
dancer an' singer than any of them. If it hadn't been for the Society
keeping her back, she would have been on the stage two years ago.
She's great, she is. She'll be just as good as her mother was."

Van Bibber gave a little start, and winced visibly, but turned it off
into a cough. "And her father," he said, hesitatingly, "does he--"

"Her father," said the woman, tossing back her head, "he looks after
himself, he does. We don't ask no favors of _him_. She'll get along
without him or his folks, thank you. Call him a gentleman? Nice
gentleman he is!" Then she stopped abruptly. "I guess, though, you
know him," she added. "Perhaps he's a friend of yourn?"

"I just know him," said Van Bibber, wearily.

He sat with the child asleep beside him while the woman turned to the
others and dressed them for the third act. She explained that Madie
would not appear in the last act, only the two larger girls, so she
let her sleep, with the cape of Van Bibber's cloak around her.

Van Bibber sat there for several long minutes thinking, and then
looked up quickly, and dropped his eyes again as quickly, and said,
with an effort to speak quietly and unconcernedly: "If the little girl
is not on in this act, would you mind if I took her home? I have a cab
at the stage-door, and she's so sleepy it seems a pity to keep her up.
The sister you spoke of or some one could put her to bed."

"Yes," the woman said, doubtfully, "Ada's home. Yes, you can take her
around, if you want to."

She gave him the address, and he sprang down to the floor, and
g