ably
shouldn't have the courage to go on."

"But why not? Haven't you also learned that it's just the day's work,
doing every day the best you can?"

"Oh, I shall go on," rejoined she.

"Yes," said he, looking at her with awed admiration. "It is in your
face. I saw it there, the day you came--after you sang the 'Batti
Batti' the first time and failed."

"There was nothing to me then."

"The seed," replied he. "And I saw it was an acorn, not the seed of
one of those weak plants that spring up overnight and wither at noon.
Yes, you will win." He laughed gayly, rolled his eyes and kissed his
fingers. "And then you can afford to take a little holiday, and fall in
love. Love! Ah, it is a joyous pastime--for a holiday. Only for a
holiday, mind you. I shall be there and I shall seize you and take you
back to your art."

In the following winter and summer Crossley disclosed why he had been
sufficiently interested in grand opera to begin to back undeveloped
voices. Crossley was one of those men who are never so practical as
when they profess to be, and fancy themselves, impractical. He became a
grand-opera manager and organized for a season that would surpass in
interest any New York had known. Thus it came about that on a March
night Mildred made her debut.

The opera was "Faust." As the three principal men singers were all
expensive--the tenor alone, twelve hundred a night--Crossley put in a
comparatively modestly salaried Marguerite. She was seized with a cold
at the last moment, and Crossley ventured to substitute Mildred Gower.
The Rivi system was still in force. She was ready--indeed, she was
always ready, as Rivi herself had been. And within ten minutes of her
coming forth from the wings, Mildred Gower had leaped from obscurity
into fame. It happens so, often in the story books, the newly
gloriously arrived one having been wholly unprepared, achieving by
sheer force of genius. It occurs so, occasionally, in life--never when
there is lack of preparation, never by force of unassisted genius,
never by accident. Mildred succeeded because she had got ready to
succeed. How could she have failed?

Perhaps you read the stories in the newspapers--how she had discovered
herself possessed of a marvelous voice, how she had decided to use it
in public, how she had coached for a part, had appeared, had become one
of the world's few hundred great singers all in a single act of an
opera. You read nothing ab