The object of the visit was briefly explained, and Sig. Cardella rattled off his answers in a ready and intelligible manner, the sweet Italian accents falling from his tongue with the same rapidity and precision that he twinkled his feet in the ballet when occasion required. He said he had made his first appearance in the ballet twenty years before, when he was twenty years of age. He had been put in training, like other children, at the age of twelve years, in the Theatre La Scala--the government school--which has given the world so many famous dancers. Here he remained eight years. "Children," said Cardella, "are admitted to this school as early as ten years and as late as twelve, and there is a regular routine of study that cannot be finished in less than eight years. It is long and arduous, and especially difficult when it is understood that pupils in this country arrive at stage honors in an immensely less time, in fact in as many months as we are required to put in years of study in the old country." "I suppose La Scala is under the tuition of the very best masters," said I. "Oh yes, indeed," responded the _maitre de ballet_, assuringly; "my first teacher was the celebrated Blozis, and after him Ousse, both French, and both great masters." "But old?" [Illustration: DONNA JULIAS' EYES.] "Yes, old; but they had their stage triumphs, and the recollection of these kept their limbs strong and their joints almost as supple as they had been in their younger years, when they themselves went forth from La Scala as premieres, to win the applause of the public." "Boys and girls are admitted to La Scala?" "Boys and girls; but all must pass a physical examination just as applicants for army service are required to do. If they are fortunate in having been endowed by nature with health and symmetry of form they are received into the school and enter at once upon its rigorous course of training. Oh, I tell you a ballet school is not the same here as it is in the old country. There must be perfect silence; not a word from the moment the master appears before the line of pupils, and after that nothing but the motions of the hundred or more bodies and the beating of the master's stick upon the floor." "How long must they practice each day?" "Well, before they are supposed to enter the academy at all, they must have had one or two years' practice outside. In the academy they have four hours' practice under the direction of the master every day; but many of them do more work than this, especially the most ambitious. I used to practice from eight to twelve hours daily, and even after having left the academy I kept up my daily exercise for increasing the limberness of the joints and the toughness of the cartilages. The more practice, the nearer perfection." "I suppose the pupils are divided into classes, are they not?" [Illustration: OBERON AND TITANIA. OBERON:--What thou see'st when thou dost wake Do it for thy true love take.