preparatory to going on, "right! Of
course she will, who ever heard of an Angel going wrong!" and laughing
she sailed away.

"Now," cried Miss Bonkowski, rushing in a little later, "give her to me,
quick, Mary! If you stand right here in the wings you can see nicely,"
and the excited lady, wonderful as to her blonde befrizzlement, gorgeous
as to pink skirt, blue bodice and not the most cleanly of white waists,
bore the Angel, like a rosebud in a mist of gauze, away.

Left alone amid the bustle and confusion Mary stood where Norma had
directed, gazing out upon the stage like one in a dream. Never in all
her colorless life had she been in the midst of such bewildering
splendors before. Was it any wonder that Norma Bonkowski was different
from the rest of the Tenement when she shared such scenes daily?

Still further dazed by the music and the glimpses she could catch of the
brilliantly lighted house, Mary held her breath and clasped her hands as
she gazed out on the stage where, across the soft green, from among the
forest trees, into the twilighted opening, glided the fairies; waving
their little arms, tripping slowly as if half-poised for flight,
listening, bending, swaying, whirling, faster, swifter, they broke into
"The Grand Spectacular Ballet of the Fairies," as the advertisements of
the opera phrased it. Faster, swifter still, noiselessly they spun,
here, there, in, out, in bewildering maze until, as the red and yellow
lights cast upon the stage changed into green, their footsteps
slackened, faltered, their heads, like tired flowers, drooped, and each
on its mossy bank of green,--the fairies sank to sleep.

All? All but one; one was left, in whose baby mind was fixed an
unfaltering supposition that she must dance, as she had done alone, over
and over again at the rehearsals for her tiny benefit, until the music
stopped. So, while Norma Bonkowski wrung her hands and the stage
manager swore, and all behind the scenes was confusion and dismay, the
Angel danced on.

The prima donna whose place it now was, as the forsaken princess, lost
in the forest, to happen upon the band of sleeping fairies, waited at
her entrance, watching the child as, catching and spreading her fan-like
skirts of gauze, she bent, swayed, flitted to and fro, her eyes big and
earnest with intentness to duty, her yellow hair flying, all
unconscious, in the fierce glare of the colored lights, of the sea of
faces in the house before her.

With