La petite Elise had only a narrow and peculiar scope of power, suited to vaudevilles:  she could not represent her own character,—­an actress’s talent and heart being as widely separated, in general, as yours are.  She could bring upon the stage in her body the presentment of a naive, innocent, pathetic nature, and use the influence such nature might have on the people outside the orchestra-chairs there.  It was not her own nature, we know.  She dressed and looked it.  A timid little thing, in her fluttering white slip, her light hair cut close to her head, in short curls.  So much for the actress and her power.

She sang at last.  She sang ballads generally, (her voice wanting cultivation,) such as agreed with her role.  But it was Lizzy Gurney who sang, not la petite Elise.

“Of course,” a society-mother said to me, one day, “I do not wish my Rosa should have a great sorrow, but—­how it would develop her voice!” The bonnet-worshipper stumbled on a great truth.

So with Lizzy:  life had taught her; and the one bitter truth of self-renunciation she had wrung out of it must tell itself somehow.  No man’s history is dumb.  It came out vaguely, an inarticulate cry to God and man, in the songs she sang, I think.  That very night, as she stood there with her gray eyes very sparkling and happy, (they were dramatic eyes, and belonged to her brain,) and her baby-hands crossed archly before her, her voice made those who listened quite forget her:  la petite Elise took them up to the places where men’s souls struggle with the Evil One and conquer.  A few, perhaps, understood that full meaning of her song:  if there was one, it was well she was an actress and sang it.

“I’m damned,” growled a fellow in the pit, “if she a’n’t a good little thing!” when the song was ended.  There was not a soul in the house that did not think the same.  Yet the girl turned fiercely towards the side-scenes, hearing it, and pitied herself at that,—­that she, a woman, should stand before the public for them to examine and chatter over her soul and her history, and her very dress and shoes.  But that was gone in a moment, and Lizzy laughed,—­naturally now.  Why, they were real friends, heart-warm to her there:  when they laughed and cried with her, she knew it.  Many of their faces she knew well:  that pale lady’s in the third box, who brought her boys so often, and gave them a bouquet to throw to Lizzy,—­always white flowers; and the old grandfather yonder, with the pretty, chubby-faced girls.  The girl’s thought now was earnest and healthful, as everybody’s grows, who succeeds in discovering his real work.  They encored her song:  when she began, she looked up and balked suddenly, her very neck turning crimson.  She had seen Doctor Blecker.  “A tawdry actress!” She could have torn her stage-dress in rags from her.  Then her tone grew low and clear.