Page 50 - An Australian Lassie

"The boudoir of Madam S— ," it said.

"Oh!" exclaimed Betty, and dropped her sun-bonnet into her grandfather's chair. "Oh, John, when T've made
myself, T'll have a room like this!"

She began to read and her eyes smiled. Then she sank down on the floor, carrying the book with her, and
leaning her back against a table-leg she lost herself in an interview with Madam S--- .

Madam replied to several searching questions blithely. She told a little story about her large family of brothers
and sisters, their extreme poverty and her own inordinate love of music. Then there was a pathetic touch when
sickness, poverty and hunger darkened the poor little home, and she, a mite of eight, had stood at a street
corner in a foreign city and sung a simple song. A crowd had soon collected, and a keen-eyed,
bent-shouldered man had been passing by hurriedly, and had stopped, caught by a "something" in the little
singer's voice, and face, and attitude. He had finally pushed his way through the crowd and stood beside the
little girl in the tattered frock.

That song and that interview had been the beginning of a great career. Hard work and small pay had
intervened, but success had followed success, and now not one of her concerts to-day meant less to her than
hundreds of pounds. Dukes threw flowers at her feet, Princes loaded her with diamond brooches, tiaras,
necklaces, bangles; kings and queens and emperors "commanded her to sing before them," and gave her
beautiful mementos.

Betty was breathing quickly as she came to this stage of Madam S— 's career. She turned a leaf, and a face
smiling under a coronet looked at her.

"Madame S— , present day," the words below said.

A neighbouring photograph showed a mite with a pinched face and a tattered frock.

"Madame S— , at eight years old!" was the inscription.

"And T'm twelve," said Betty. "Twelve and a bit."

She turned her head, then raised it sharply. There standing beside her was her grandfather.

The two looked at each other.

What Betty saw at first--it must be confessed--was the keen-eyed, bent-shouldered individual who had
appeared to the little street singer, and the silly little imaginative maiden waited for him to speak.

What the grandfather saw was a small girl of "twelve and a bit," in a pink print frock; a small girl with a
brown shining face, golden-brown hair and brown eyes, and parted red lips, a little person in every way
different from the pale-faced ghost who had visited him awhile back--so different that he did not know her.

He simply took her for a little school-girl and no more.

Then Betty remembered who he was--who she was--where she was--and a few other matters of similar
importance, and a red, red flush spread over her face and to the tips of her small pink ears.

The sea-captain opened his mouth in a jocular roar.

"Who's been sitting in my room?" he demanded. "Why, here she is!"