ut ye mane by it?"
the loud-voiced Mrs. O'Malligan demanded, "a-runnin' off with the
childer agin, an' the whole Tiniment out huntin' an' her niver to be
found at all, at all?"

But the sweet-faced, tall young lady coming to his rescue, the two women
softened, and reaching the Tenement, insisted on Miss Stannard coming
in, and hearing the Angel's story.

And on the way up to Miss Bonkowski's apartment, she learned that the
Tenement, that morning, had been convulsed from cellar to garret, by the
great honor bestowed upon it. For who but the Prima Donna, the Great
Personage of Norma's professional world, had just driven away in her
carriage after a visit of an hour and the Angel never to be found at
all!

"An' ma'am," explained Mary Carew, her bony face swollen with crying,
when Miss Stannard had been installed in one of the two chairs of the
apartment, "an' ma'am, it was fer th' Angel she come. A offerin' Norma
an' me anything we'd name to give her up, such a fancy as she's taken to
her, an' wantin' her fer her own."

"And you, what did you say?" asked Miss Ruth, gently, watching Mary with
tender eyes as she held the beautiful, chattering little creature so
jealously in her arms, and thinking as she watched, of the life and
reputation commonly accorded the great singer.

"Say?" came from Miss Bonkowski quickly, her befrizzled blonde tresses
fairly a-tremble with her intensity, and sticking the hat-pin recklessly
in and out of the lace hat she had taken off, "what did we say, you ask,
and knowing, as you and every body must, the kind of life and future it
would mean for a child that takes to things like this 'n does! With all
her money and her soft, winning ways, it is better, far better, for the
child with her disposition, to starve along with Mary an' me, than grow
up to that, if it was nothing more to be afraid of than being left to
servants and hotel people and dragged around from place to place in such
a life as it is. Not that I mean, ma'am," and Miss Bonkowski spoke with
quick pride, "that being in the profession need to make any body what
they shouldn't be, for I know plenty of 'em of the best, and am one
myself, though only a Chorus, but what with what's said about this one,
even with her good heart and generous ways, she's not the one to have
our Angel, though she meant it for the best."

"An' she said," Mary Carew took it up, "as how Norma's gettin' old, and
'll be dropped afore long from the Chorus, an'