r
given her by the blonde and handsome tenor.

"She is the most fascinating little creature I ever met in my life,"
the prima donna had cried to the excited Miss Bonkowski, who had never
been addressed by that great personage before,--"did you ever see such
heavenly eyes,--not blue--violet--and such a smile--like the sun through
tears! Who is she,--where did she come from? Such grace,--such poise!"

The Angel's story was recited to quite an audience, in Miss Bonkowski's
most dramatic manner. But long before the chorus lady had finished, the
great singer, lending but a wandering attention after the few facts were
gathered, had coaxed the child into her silken lap, and with the mother
touch which lies in every real woman's fingers from doll-baby days
upward, was fondling and re-touching the rings of shining hair, and,
with the mother-notes which a child within one's arms brings into every
womanly woman's voice, was cooing broken endearments into the little
ear.

Meanwhile the Angel gazed into the beautiful face with the calm and
critical eyes of childhood. But what she saw there must have satisfied,
for, with a sigh of content, she finally settled back against the
encircling arm. "Pretty lady," was her candid comment. "Angel loves
her."

Flattered and praised as she had been, it is doubtful if the great
singer had ever received a tribute to her charms that pleased her more.
"Bring her to my room to-morrow to dress her," she said to Miss
Bonkowski in soft, winning tones that were nevertheless a command,
unpinning the two long-stemmed roses she wore and putting them in the
baby fingers, "and bring her early, mind!" And so it was that Mary
Carew, nervous and awkward, was there now, doing her best to dress the
excited little creature, whom nothing could keep still a second at a
time.

"Thank you, ma'am," Mary managed to breathe as the great personage,
turning the full radiance of her beauty upon the bewildered seamstress,
took the necklace of flashing jewels from her maid's fingers and bade
her help Mary.

The great lady laughed. "You're nervous, aren't you?" she said
good-humoredly, too human not to be pleased at this unconscious tribute
on Mary's part.

"If the child can only do it right, ma'am," said Mary, in a voice she
hardly knew for her own, overcome this by graciousness no less than by
the splendor.

"Right," said the lady, clasping a bracelet upon her round, white arm,
and settling her trailing draperies