Overpowered by this unexpected refusal, the young girl sank into a chair--when suddenly, the face of the manager was illumined by a brilliant idea. "All may yet be well, my dear Mademoiselle--we can reconcile every thing. We will at once come to my own relief and that of your mother. I cannot engage _you_, but I will engage your mother; and I will give her two hundred thousand francs ($40,000) for the first season." "But, sir," said the young girl, "my mother is now Countess Rossi. It is twenty-two years since she left the stage; and how do we know whether she still possesses the talents which made her once so celebrated?" "As we cannot tell that, Mademoiselle, we will not ask her either to sing or to appear on the stage. Nominally, I will engage Madame Henriette Sontag; but it is you who will sing in her place." The affair was at once arranged. All was signed and agreed upon, amidst tears of tenderness and admiration in which Mr. Lumley, though he was a manager, could not help joining. The Countess Rossi consented to the strictest retirement during the engagement of her daughter--or rather her own. The parties were bound to secresy by the most solemn oaths; and this secret has been so well kept that no one has suspected the substitution. My instincts, aided by memory, have enabled me to penetrate this mystery, which I shall perhaps be blamed for revealing. But I confess that I am not a little proud of having found it out. And then I really felt it a matter of conscience not to reveal to the world such an unexampled and unheard of instance of filial devotion. On her entrance at the _Conservatoire_, Mademoiselle Sontag imitated so well the manners and grace of her mother--her refinement and her elegance--that the illusion was complete. It was the same smile--the same winning courtesy to the public--the same undulating figure. Her very music books, like those of her mother, were bound in rich crimson velvet. Everybody, excepting myself, was taken in--and, like every one, I too applauded--to the utter destruction of my gloves; and I should certainly have split the skin of my hands as well, had it not been much more solid than kid.