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 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 a sudden flash of intuition Norma Bonkowski flew to the manager. "Stop the music, make them stop," she begged.
He glared at her savagely, but nevertheless communicated the order to the orchestra, and as the music waned to a mere wailing of the violin, the little dancer, rosy, hot, tired, whirled slower, slower,-then sank on her bed of green, and like her companions feigned sleep with the cunning pretence of childhood.
But not even then could the prima donna make her appearance, for, in the storm of applause which followed, the revived efforts of the orchestra were drowned.
The face of the manager broadened into smiles, Norma Bonkowski fell against Mary Carew with tears of relief, and the prima donna with good-natured readiness stepped upon the stage, lifted the now frightened child who, at the noise, had sprung up in alarm, and carried her out to the footlights, the other children peeping, but too well drilled, poor dears, to otherwise stir. The audience paused.
"Wave bye-bye to the little girl over there," whispered the prima donna with womanly readiness, nodding toward the nearest box, filled with children eagerly enjoying "The Children's Opera of the Princess Blondina and the Fairies."
Though frightened and ready to cry, the Angel waved her hand obediently, and the prima donna, nodding and smiling in the unaffected fashion which was half her own charm, carried the child off the stage amid applause as enthusiastic as she herself was used to receiving.
It had all taken place in a very few minutes, but as the smiling singer said, handing the Angel over to the manager, even in those few moments, "She has made the hit of the season," then, turning, re-entered the stage, her voice, with its clear bell-like tones, filling the house with the song, "Blondina Awakening The Fairies."
Nor did it end with this, for the Angel was forthwith engaged, at what seemed to Norma and Mary a fabulous price, to repeat her solo dance at every Wednesday and Saturday matinée during the further run of the opera.
CHAPTER V. THE ANGEL RESCUES MR. TOMLIN.
It was on the afternoon that Mary carried back her week's completed work that Norma, receiving an unexpected summons to the Opera House, was obliged, though with many misgivings, to leave the Angel in the charge of Joey. "But what else could I do," she reasoned afterward, "with Mrs. O'Malligan out and Mrs. Tomlin sick, and nobody else willing, it appeared, to see to her?"
True, she had cautioned Joey, over and over again about keeping the child away from the window, and about staying right in the room until her return; but, notwithstanding, Norma could hardly have gotten to the corner before Joey, promptly forgetting his promise, and finding the room a dull playground, was enticing his charge into the hall and straightway down the stairs.
At the bottom of the second flight, the two children came upon Mr. Tomlin entertaining two gentlemen callers. Only the week before, the Tenement had been called upon to mourn with the Tomlins, whose baby had been carried away in a little coffin after the fashion of tenement babies when the thermometer climbs up the scale near to one hundred. And since then, Mrs. Tomlin, refusing to be comforted, had taken to her bed, thus making it necessary for her husband to receive his company in the hall.
The callers, who, together with their host, were sitting on the steps, moved aside to allow the children to pass. The larger of the gentlemen was unpleasantly dirty, with a ragged beard and a shock of red hair. The other was a little man with quick black eyes and a pleasant smile. Passing these by, the Angel paused on the step above Mr. Tomlin and slipped her arms around his neck.
"Pick a back, my Tomlin," she sweetly commanded in the especially imperious tones she reserved for Mr. Tomlin's sex, "get up, horsey."
The good-natured giant, for such her Tomlin was, shouldered her as one would some precious burden liable to break, grinned, stood up and obediently trotted the length of the hall and back.
Joey, meanwhile, legs apart, stood eyeing the visitors attentively. "Keep up that kind of talk," the dirty gentleman was urging, "and we've got him. He's worth any three of ordinary strength, and he's a favorite with the men, too."
Here the horse and his rider returned. "What a got in a pocket for Angel?" the young autocrat proceeded to demand when lifted down. Of all her masculine subjects in the Tenement, Mr. Tomlin was her veriest slave.
He produced a soiled but gay advertising picture. Her ladyship put out her hand. "But you must give us a dance fer it," coaxed Mr. Tomlin, anxious to display the talent of the Tenement. "She's the young 'un as dances at the Op'ry House, the kid is," he explained to his visitors, "they've had her pictoor in the papers, too. Miss Bonkowski, the chorus-lady upstairs, she's got one of them, came out in a Sunday supplement, though I can't say I see the likeness myself."
At this, the two gentlemen, who had seemed decidedly bored than otherwise at the interruption, deigned to bestow a moment of their attention upon the beautiful child in the faded gingham dress.
"She got skeered to the theyater the other day," put in Joey, "an' most cried when they clapped so, an' they promised her anything she wanted if she wouldn't next time--"