fifty girls wanted at a play, and as soon as I got back, I told her I was going to leave. She was very angry, and kept that week's wages, but I went, and the next day I answered the advertisement. It was for girls to dance, and I said I could not, and would not, and was just going to leave, when the manager came in, and stopped me. He began by making foolish speeches about how beautiful I was, but when I started away, he begged pardon, and said I was just what they wanted for a queen, who was to come out of a flower, and did not have to dance, which would suit me, since I was so over-particular. At first I thought I never could, and it made me so ashamed, to think of being in such a crowd, that I felt like hiding my face forever. But there I was, with no home and no money, and what could I do? So I signed the contract for ten nights, at fifty cents a night, and felt that I could never look you in the face again, or any of the girls. It was not as bad as I expected, but oh, so different from what I had always thought the stage was. We all had to dress in a little room that was as cold as ice, and most of the girls were so loud and coarse, and talked slang, and they all took a dislike to me because I was queen. They called me "old prudy," and had all kinds of coarse jokes that made me feel as though I would die of shame; I took cold the first night, the stage was so windy, and our dresses as thin as wisps, and then I was so mortified and miserable. I nearly starved while I was there, the pay was so small, and I couldn't afford to have any fire in my room at the small hotel, and took such a heavy cold that I thought I would die coughing. Oh, how wretched I was! I wanted to die, for I thought I had fallen so low that you would never care for me again, and I never felt that I needed God as I did then. I don't think I ever prayed honestly before, but it seemed as if that terrible feeling of being alone, would kill me, so I began to go to God, as I would to you, and it became such a comfort. I wanted to be good and honest, whatever I did, so that I could feel that I still had a right to love and think of you all. I stayed with that company the rest of the winter, at a salary of two dollars a week, and did all manner of odds and ends. Sometimes go on as a substitute, sometimes as a servant or some inferior character, and often to dress the leading ladies, when they found that I could do it nicely. The manager was a gruff, coarse man, but he had a kind heart, and after a while, he seemed to take a sort of interest in me, especially when my cough grew so bad. He brought me medicine twice, and one night asked me if I had been used to such a life. I told him, no, but would not answer any other questions. When the company broke up in the spring, he found me a place as nurse-girl in a family that he knew, and said, that in the fall, a friend of his was going to organize an opera-troupe, and that he would try and get me in, for by that time, I