"There will be plenty of spitefulness for your children to inherit, whether there is any talent or not," retorted Leonie, her eyes flashing with resentful pride. It was the first time that any one had deliberately alluded to the taint upon her birth, and it stung. "I have something to tell you," said her father to Leonie a few days after. "The director of the opera has been talking to me about you. He is only waiting for my consent to bring you out at the Imperial Opera." Leonie's face lighted up with a quick gleam of surprise and pleasure, which was followed by a sudden terror. "You may think it strange that I felt any reluctance: you are so young that you do not know enough of society to appreciate the objections. Not that there are any insuperable objections. In an art-loving community like ours the career of a great artist is prouder than a queen's." The color had faded from Leonie's face, but her father did not notice it. "The empress condescended to speak to me about it to-day. Her Majesty has the welfare of the opera very much at heart, and, as she says, one is responsible for a talent like yours. It is the rarest of gifts. Why not consecrate it to the elevation of art and the delight of the world? A vocation for art is as sacred as one for religion, and it would be almost a crime in me to hold you back from so manifest a destiny as yours. Well, what have you to say, child?" and he looked full into his daughter's pale, agitated face. "It is too much for you, my darling: you are quite overcome. Think it over and tell me to-morrow night." And he kissed her trembling lips with unusual emotion. Leonie went to her room, but not to sleep. How short was that sleepless night, with its whirl of conflicting resolutions, its torrent of emotion, its ceaseless panorama of dissolving views! Opera after opera unrolled in magical splendor before her eyes, resounded in bursts of harmony in her ears and flowed in waves of delicious sweetness into her heart. And in all she was queen, and hearts rose and fell at her bidding as the ocean-waves beneath the strong and sweet compelling of the moon. It was intoxication, but underlying it was the deep satisfaction of a soul that has found the true outlet of its highest powers. "All the current of her being" surged and eddied into this one career that opened so invitingly before her. But she could not say "I will," though she wished to do so. The glories faded and another vision came. Her mother seemed to lie before her, dying, forsaken, remorseful, sinful. Was it her mother? was it herself? "Art thou stronger than I?" asked the voiceless lips.--"Yea, I am stronger," replied the soul of Leonie. And then a sudden revelation of incipient vanities and weaknesses and pride flashed across her consciousness as in the great light of God. Leonie shrank away self-abased. "Did my worship of art, which I thought so holy, hide all this?" she questioned.