rl," said he, petulantly, "if
it were not too ridiculous. You ought to remember that she is an
established favorite here. She has amused these people year after year;
they look on her as an old friend; they are grateful to her. The means
she uses to make people laugh may not meet with your approval; but she
knows her own business, doubtless; and she succeeds in her own way."

"Ah, well," said Miss White, as she put aside her bonnet, "I hope you
won't bring up Carry to this sort of life."

"To what sort of life?" her father exclaimed, angrily. "Haven't you
everything that can make life pleasant? I don't know what more you want.
You have not a single care. You are petted and caressed wherever you go.
And you ought to have the delight of knowing that the further you
advance in your art the further rewards are in store for you. The way is
clear before you. You have youth and strength; and the public is only
too anxious to applaud whatever you undertake. And yet you complain of
your manner of life."

"It isn't the life of a human being at all," she said, boldly--but
perhaps it was only her headache, or her weariness, or her ill-humor,
that drove her to this rebellion; "it is the cutting one's self off from
everything that makes life worth having. It is a continual
degradation--the exhibition of feelings that ought to be a woman's most
sacred and secret possession. And what will the end of it be? Already I
begin to think I don't know what I am. I have to sympathize with so many
characters--I have to be so many different people--that I don't quite
know what my own character is, or if I have any at all--"

Her father was staring at her in amazement. What had led her into these
fantastic notions? While she was professing that her ambition to become
a great and famous actress was the one ruling thought and object of her
life, was she really envying the poor domestic drudge whom she saw
coming to the theatre to enjoy herself with her fool of a husband,
having withdrawn for an hour or two from her housekeeping books and her
squalling children? At all events, Miss White left him in no doubt as to
her sentiments at that precise moment. She talked rapidly, and with a
good deal of bitter feeling; but it was quite obvious, from the
clearness of her line of contention, that she had been thinking over the
matter. And while it was all a prayer that her sister Carry might be
left to live a natural life, and that she should not be compell