song: when she began, she looked up and balked
suddenly, her very neck turning crimson. She had seen Doctor Blecker. "A
tawdry actress!" She could have torn her stage-dress in rags from her.
Then her tone grew low and clear.

There was a young couple just facing her with a little child, a dainty
baby-thing in cap and plume. Neither of them listened to Lizzy: the mother
was tying the little fellow's shoe as he hoisted it on the seat, and the
father was looking at _her_. "I missed my chance," said Lizzy Gurney, in
her heart. "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight!" A tawdry
actress. She might have stayed at home yonder, quiet and useless: that
might have been. Then she thought of Grey, well beloved,--of the other
house, full of hungry mouths she was feeding. Looking more sharply at
Doctor Blecker while she sang, she saw Grey beside him, drawn back behind
a pillar. Presently she saw her take the glass from her husband and lean
forward. There was a red heat under her eyes: she had been crying. They
applauded Lizzy just then, and Grey looked around frightened, and then
laughed nervously.

"How beautiful she is! Do you see? Oh, Paul! Mrs. Sheppard, _do_ you
see?"--tearing her fan, and drawing heavy breaths, moving on her seat
constantly.

"She never loved me heartily before," thought Lizzy, as she sang. "I never
deserved it. I was a heartless dog. I"--

People applauded again, the old grandfather this time nodding to the
girls. There was something so cheery and healthy and triumphant in the low
tones. Even the young mother looked up suddenly from her boy, listening,
and glanced at her husband. It was like a Christmas-song.

"She never loved me before. I deserve it."

That was what she said in it. But they did not know.

Doctor Blecker looked at her, unsmiling, critical. She could see, too, a
strange face beside him,--a motherly, but a keen, harsh-judging face.

"Grey," said Mrs. Sheppard, "I wish we could go behind the scenes. Can we?
I want to talk to Lizzy this minute."

"To tell her she is at the Devil's work, Mrs. Sheppard, eh?"

Doctor Blecker pulled at his beard, angrily.

"Suppose you and I let her alone. We don't understand her."

"I think I do. God help her!"

"We will go round when the song is over," said Grey, gently.

Lizzy, scanning their faces, scanning every face in pit or boxes,
discerned a good will and wish on each. Something wholesome and sound in
her heart received it, half af