rap of paper to
write a few lines to put under her sister's door.

Again Fate was against her. Mrs. O'Malligan's door was locked, and she
determined to run across to the corner grocery to beg a bit of paper and
pencil from Mr. Buckley's brother Bill who clerked there, and learn
something of the absent family. And here, while crossing the street in
nervous haste, she had been knocked down in a press of vehicles,--and so
the long chapter of strange accidents was set going.

* * * * *

A few days after Christmas the prima donna of The Garden Opera House was
found in her luxurious sitting-room, by her maid, face downward on the
couch,--in tears, the result of a state of mind, caused, as it proved,
by a visit from the little Angelique and her beautiful mother.

"How can I ever thank you for your generous impulse," Mrs. Breaux had
said, in impulsive, sweet fashion, taking the wayward, beautiful, young
creature's hand in hers, "or how can I ever be grateful enough to the
good God for surrounding my darling with such love and preserving her,
as He has done, from the evils of this terrible city," and she had cried
and trembled even then, with the child there against her knee, calling
and prattling to the green and yellow parrot on his gilded perch.

"If only some one could have understood all the poor child tried to
tell," said the prima donna, "but her dear, funny little lisp--"

"It is no wonder they could not," cried the mother in quick exoneration
of her child's Tenement friends, "her speech was a comical mixture of
her father's French, my English, and the nurse's Irish brogue,--even Mr.
Breaux gave up often in despair, and would turn for me to interpret."

It followed, then, that Angelique had been brought to tell the great
singer good-bye, and in speaking of her first meeting with her at the
Opera House, the prima donna referred to the child's wonderful grace,
her poise. "She has more than talent," the professional woman said,
"she has genius."

"It is a love of motion born in her," replied the mother, "my sisters
have it before her. Angelique danced actually before she could talk, and
my sister took her to dancing school and kindergarten when she was
little more than a baby, because it seemed such a pleasure to the
child."

And then it so happened the singer was led to speak of her own life, of
her wretched, motherless childhood, her poverty, the discovery of her
voi