When I asked her would she like some food while she waited, her poor pinched little face brightened as she eagerly said: ‘Yes, lady, if you please. I have had no breakfast, and I am so hungry.’ So, while she partook of the meal she so much needed, I collected what clothes I could, and gave them to her, promising to have some more on the morrow, when I desired her to call again. She did so, bringing with her a letter full of expressions of gratitude from her mother for the help I had given. It was on this occasion I heard from little Mary the following history of a travelling theatre. ‘We came to this village two days ago. Our theatre is erected in the street, and we call ourselves the Emerson Company. That’s my mother’s name; and it sounds grander-like than my father’s, which is Flanagan. There are six of us alive; but my eldest sister is married these two years, and has a theatre of her own. We mostly marry into the profession, for we find it more useful,’ she added. ‘My big sister at home is fourteen, and we buried two. Next to her, then I come, and I am eight; and my only brother, who comes next to me, is six. No more of us act, because Maggie must mind the baby while mother is acting. My sister dances and sings beautifully; and as for an Irish jig, you never saw the like of her, she’s that good. But she gets frightfully tired, for she has heart disease; and the doctor says as how she may die any minute. I can sing too,’ she continued proudly; ‘and I could dance on the “tight wire” too; but I fell off it two years ago, because I forgot to rub my feet in a white powder we have to use before going on; and since then, I am afraid. But my little brother isn’t, and he can turn a summerset on the wire and juggle grand. He can throw the knives as high as that’—indicating with her hands a distance of three or four feet—‘and can bring the sharp points of the blades on to the palms of his hand without so much as giving them a scratch.’ ‘How can he do that, if the knives are so sharp?’ ‘Well, you see, lady, father has a big jar of stuff like brown oil—I don’t know its real name—and my brother rubs his hands all over with some of it—very little does; then the knives cannot cut him. It will only come off again by washing his hands in mostly boiling water.’ ‘How many are there in your company?’