as widely separated, in general, as yours are. She
could bring upon the stage in her body the presentment of a _naive_,
innocent, pathetic nature, and use the influence such nature might have on
the people outside the orchestra-chairs there. It was not her own nature,
we know. She dressed and looked it. A timid little thing, in her
fluttering white slip, her light hair cut close to her head, in short
curls. So much for the actress and her power.

She sang at last. She sang ballads generally, (her voice wanting
cultivation,) such as agreed with her _role_. But it was Lizzy Gurney who
sang, not _la petite Elise_.

"Of course," a society-mother said to me, one day, "I do _not_ wish my
Rosa should have a great sorrow, but--how it would develop her voice!" The
bonnet-worshipper stumbled on a great truth.

So with Lizzy: life had taught her; and the one bitter truth of
self-renunciation she had wrung out of it must tell itself somehow. No
man's history is dumb. It came out vaguely, an inarticulate cry to God and
man, in the songs she sang, I think. That very night, as she stood there
with her gray eyes very sparkling and happy, (they were dramatic eyes, and
belonged to her brain,) and her baby-hands crossed archly before her, her
voice made those who listened quite forget her: _la petite Elise_ took
them up to the places where men's souls struggle with the Evil One and
conquer. A few, perhaps, understood that full meaning of her song: if
there was one, it was well she was an actress and sang it.

"I'm damned," growled a fellow in the pit, "if she a'n't a good little
thing!" when the song was ended. There was not a soul in the house that
did not think the same. Yet the girl turned fiercely towards the
side-scenes, hearing it, and pitied herself at that,--that she, a woman,
should stand before the public for them to examine and chatter over her
soul and her history, and her very dress and shoes. But that was gone in a
moment, and Lizzy laughed,--naturally now. Why, they were real friends,
heart-warm to her there: when they laughed and cried with her, she knew
it. Many of their faces she knew well: that pale lady's in the third box,
who brought her boys so often, and gave them a bouquet to throw to
Lizzy,--always white flowers; and the old grandfather yonder, with the
pretty, chubby-faced girls. The girl's thought now was earnest and
healthful, as everybody's grows, who succeeds in discovering his real
work. They encored her