olness of the
Tenement hallway into the glare of the August sun.

But all this while the little brain was at work. "Goin' to Angel's
mamma,--her goin' to her mamma," suddenly the child broke forth as Norma
hurried along the hot streets, and the little hand beat a gleeful tattoo
as it rested on Norma's shoulder.

Norma paused on the crowded sidewalk, to take breath beneath the shade
of a friendly awning. "Not to-day, my angel," she panted, "to-day your
Norma is going to take her precious where there are ever so many nice
little girls for her to dance with."

"Angel likes to dance with little girls, Norma," admitted the baby,
while Norma made ready to thread her way across the street through the
press of vehicles.

"I'll not say one word to her about being frightened," reflected the
wise chorus lady, "and she's such an eager little darling, thinking of
other things and trying to do her best, maybe she won't think of it. If
she can only keep the place while that child is sick,--what a help the
money would be!"--and the usually hopeful Norma sighed as she hurried in
the side entrance of the handsome stone building known to the public as
The Garden Opera House.

* * * * *

The next afternoon, at The Garden Opera House, as the bell rang for the
curtain to rise, Mary Carew, in best attire of worn black dress and
cheap straw hat, was putting the Angel into the absent fairy's cast-off
shell, which consisted of much white tarlatan as to skirts and much
silver tinsel as to waist, with a pair of wonderful gauzy wings at sight
of which the Angel was enraptured.

Miss Bonkowski being, as she expressed it, "on in the first scene," Mary
Carew had been obliged to forsake jean pantaloons for the time being and
come to take charge of the child, who in her earnest, quick,
enthusiastic little fashion had done her part and gone through the
rehearsal better even than the sanguine Norma had hoped, and after
considerable drilling had satisfied the authorities that she could fill
the vacancy.

As for the Angel, in her friendly fashion she had enjoyed herself
hugely, accepting the homage of the other children like a small queen,
graciously permitting herself to be enthused over by the various ladies
who, like Norma, constituted "the chorus," and carrying home numerous
offerings, from an indigestible wad of candy known as "an
all-day-sucker," given her by her fairy-partner, to a silver quarte