At last a bell rang. Some dark drapery, directly before him, was drawn back, and then appeared before him those boys huddled together near an old lady, in poverty-stricken garments, with a yawning fireplace in the background, and a young girl brightening the tableau with her beauty. There was breathless stillness in the room—for the picture was one to touch the heart and fire and refine the imagination. No one stirred; and every eye was bent on that living picture of misery. But, all at once, some confusion arose near the door; an old man was pressing his way out so eagerly that he pushed the doorkeeper, who was leaning forward to see the picture, so rudely aside, that he almost fell. CHAPTER V. AN UNEXPECTED PERFORMER. Twice Anna Burns had changed her costume, first to satisfy Mrs. Savage, that it would be all that she desired for the Ivanhoe tableaux; and again, that no detail of poverty should be wanting to that picture which, alas! has been so often duplicated in real life, “The Soldier’s Destitute Family.” As she was putting on a Jewish garment a second time, in the little drawing-room, a rather heavy hand was laid on her shoulder, and a voice that made her start, from the deep tragedy of its tones, sounded in her ear. “Are you the young person?” “I—I—— What young person?” faltered Anna, turning crimson under the touch of that hand. “Mrs. Savage has a dependent or protegé, here, who is to stand in the Ivanhoe picture. Are you that person?” Anna turned suddenly, and looked her tormentor in the face. She was a tall, angular person, with a complexion that seemed washed out and re-dyed, pale blue eyes, full of impatient ferocity, and a mouth that was perpetually in motion. “Are you that person?” she repeated, giving the shoulder she pressed a slight shake. “I came here at the request of Mrs. Savage, if that is what you to wish to know,” answered Anna Burns, stepping back with a gesture of offended pride. “And you are her Rebecca?” answered Miss Eliza Halstead, shaking out her laced handkerchief, and inhaling the perfume which it gave forth with a proud elevation of the head. “So she is determined to monopolize every thing. Has Miss Georgiana Halstead arrived yet?” “I do not know the lady.” “Not know her, and she is to be your foil—your rival. When you go off the stage she will come on, robed in azure velvet, crowned with pearls—my pearls; while I——but never mind, there is blood in my veins which can protect itself. Oh! here she comes. Say nothing; be secret as the grave! You will see! You will see!” Miss Halstead put one long finger to her lips, and glided backward out of the room just as Georgiana Halstead came in by a side entrance. For a moment these two young girls stood looking at each other; one with a rosy blush on her cheeks and a smile on her lips; the other shy, pale, and shrinking. She felt like an intruder there. Georgiana was the first to speak.