into the presence of the ballet master, who regards them physically, scrutinizing each as the name is called, and seldom rejecting any not absolutely deformed who appear before him. They are sent to the costumer's and their work begins at once. All they are required to do is to run up and down or around the stage in drills and marches, or to group themselves in heart-rending tableaux at intervals during the dance. The best--that is, the girls who are quick to perceive and swift to accomplish the commands of the master, are selected for leaders and for the principal work in this subordinate branch of the spectacle. Day after day they are drilled until the night of the first performance arrives, when, often in tights that do not fit them, in costumes that are wrinkled and dirty, they flash in all their awkwardness and gloominess upon the scene, to be laughed at, and to detract from instead of adding to the beauty of the spectacle. A newspaper writer of experience in this line says: Few of those who observe and admire the graceful attitudes, easy movements, and picturesque evolutions of the well-trained chorus or ballet in an opera have any adequate conception of the amount of practice and hard work necessary for the stage of perfection arrived at. A number of years ago, when ballet girls were in greater demand than at present, an advertisement inserted in New York papers or those of any other large city for material to fill up the _corps de ballet_ would bring in applicants by dozens, and sometimes even by hundreds. The same is true in a less degree to-day, but at that time the wages paid to working girls were far more meagre than at the present time, and the few dollars per week to be obtained in the theatre was a princely sum by comparison, and, though the engagement be but a few weeks, the opportunity was gladly accepted. The great majority of these applicants come from the lower working class, who are induced by pecuniary motives alone to exhibit themselves. They show in their faces and forms the traces of hard work and poor living, and an expert master of the ballet has need of all his skill to train them and dispose them on the stage so that their natural disadvantages of form may be kept as much as possible from public view. Now and then, however, there is a case where the glamour of the stage has so fascinated girls in better circumstances that they are ready to begin at any round of the ladder in a profession that seems so entirely imbued with roseate tints. It is the exception, and not the rule, for these to persevere; for, when brought face to face with the stern realities of the case, their ardor is dampened, the world seems hollow, "their dolls are stuffed with sawdust," and they are prepared to cry out _vanitas vanitatum_, and enjoy the rest of their stage experiences from the other side of the foot-lights.