warmly. “You will be an actress. I thought so; now I know it!

"But what I have suffered, and how much I owe to your sympathy and encouragement!" replied Stella.

By the time that the call-boy's summons for the second act was given, she had entirely regained her self-possession. Every time she appeared, she grew in favor with the audience. There is no field for a striking display of dramatic abilities in the simple character of Virginia, as portrayed by Knowles; but Stella's unaffected, artless delineation left a deep impression.

In the fourth act, as Virginius raises his knife to stab his daughter, Stella gave utterance to an irrepressible shriek, which imparted unusual reality to the scene. Virginius, the instant he had struck the blow, dropped the young girl from his arms upon the ground, and, with upraised knife, rushed towards Claudius, exclaiming:

"Lo! Appius, with this innocent blood

I do devote thee to the infernal Gods!

Stella felt the trampling of the citizens' and soldiers' feet over her dress and on her loosened hair, as they gathered round to form the closing tableau; but she lay motionless, inwardly sending up thanks to Heaven that her trial was over. The curtain rapidly descended. Mr. Belton assisted her to rise. "You have done well, you give promise," were his chary words of commendation.

There was, of course, a call" for the débûtante. The manager requested Mr. Tennent to be kind

enough to lead on Miss Rosenvelt. The pompous tragedian complied somewhat sulkily. As Stella made her obeisance before the foot-lights, every chord of her heart vibrated with a strange, wild delight. It was the first sensation of unalloyed pleasure she had experienced that night.

While she resumed her every-day attire, the tearful congratulations of Mattie drew from her eyes responding tokens of joy.

Floy came for the basket. That he noticed her streaming eyes was obvious. "O! O! O!" he murmured, pityingly; then, when she smiled, he shook his head, rubbed his hands gleefully, and repeated his favorite ejaculation, "Such a house! such a house !"

Half an hour later, the débûtante was sobbing in her mother's arms. "Mother, I have succeeded! Forgive my waywardness!"

CHAPTER V.

The Weight of New Responsibility. - Fate of Public Idols. Shakspeare at the Toilet. Mental Aliment. — Rehearsal of Desdemona.- Mr. Oakland's Analytical Criticisms. — The Second Night behind the Scenes. Floy. The Ballet-Girl's Request.Stella's Dreams of Future Power. - Perdita, and her Senatorial Parent. The Call-Boy's Rebuke of the Novice. Return of Stage Fright. A Blustering Othello. Desdemona's Entrance in the Council-Chamber. - Stella's Conception of the Character. - Evidences of Genius.· Unfortunate Embrace of the Moor and Lady.— Meeting of the Sublime and Absurd. — Stella's Fall from Poetic Heights. An Awkward Predicament. Timely Advice of Mrs. Fairfax. Stella again surrenders herself to the Magic of Personation. Powers of the Young Actress Unfolded. Points. The Spell accidentally dissolved by a Well-meaning Friend. Fifth Act.- Unanticipated Violence of the Tragedian. Desdemona's Suffocation. - Kind Assistance of Mrs. Fairfax. The Picture. ·Gradually Increasing Tortures of Desdemona's Position. - Lost Consciousness.

Salient

THE first perilous ordeal passed, its auguries all auspicious, Stella thought to experience a sense of relief, of serene security, a freedom from the harassing doubts which had tortured her spirit for days. But the weight of a new responsibility that pressed upon her mind soon dispelled these fallacious hopes. She had succeeded; but, alas! how uncertain was the tenure by which that success was held! Are

even the smiles of princes as inconstant as public favor? What air-blown bubbles are lighter than the empty breath of popular acclamations? What is an actor but a world's puppet, to be to-day extolled to the skies, to-morrow derided and denounced as an egotistic impostor? Has not the veriest caprice, the merest accident, again and again caused an audience to pluck from the brows of their minions the laurels of toilsome years? When the idol is elevated to its throne, and clothed with all imagined perfections, what is left but to tear it down? The existence of the actor, then, must be a daily struggle to maintain the slippery eminence he has won; a constant combat against the uplifted hands ready to pluck him thence; a nightly strife to ascend beyond their reach. And had Stella no prescience of this direful contest? No! The bitter knowledge could only be revealed after she had taken her first irrevocable step.

On the morning succeeding her débût, she forsook her pillow almost before the sun

The shady curtain from Aurora's bed."

She rose unrefreshed, for Care had taken up his mansion in her breast, and his enemy, Sleep, would not lodge near him. Her limbs ached as she staggered across the room; her heavy eyes could scarcely see. She was compelled to lie down again; and, having selected a volume of Shakspeare, returned to her couch, not to slumber, but to study. She was to enact Desdemona that night, to rehearse Desdemona that morning. The Lady of Lyons was the

play selected for the following night; Evadne for the third. In the crowded laboratory of her brain those poetic phantoms must needs receive vitality, and assume shape and substance.

The book remained in her hands until Mattie's summons to breakfast. Nor was it wholly thrown aside as the young actress performed her morning. toilet. She fastened the volume to the frame of her mirror, and, while smoothing the rich tangles of her hair, her eyes were fixed on the open pages. More than once her mind became so thoroughly engrossed that the comb dropped from her fingers, her hands involuntarily clasped themselves over her head in their favorite position, and she walked to and fro in the small chamber, rehearsing aloud.

It was long past the usual hour when she joined her mother at breakfast. The latter seemed, for once, inclined to converse; but Stella could not talk, nor could she partake of food. With mental aliment her throbbing brain was overloaded, and labored fruitlessly to digest its too abundant supply.

"I am afraid you are forgetting rehearsal, Miss Stella; we shall hardly be in time," said Mattie; and Stella was quickly roused from her fit of abstraction. The attendant identified herself so completely with her young charge, that the we was constantly upon her lips. "We play Desdemona to-night.' "We played Virginia last night."

2

Mr. Tennent had not arrived when they appeared upon the stage. Other members of the company, calculating upon the great tragedian's habitual dilatoriness, were also absent. The prompter and his flippant juvenile assistant were the only persons at