surpassed himself in the splendor of her crowning decoration. Having finished he anointed her golden locks with a compound of a peculiarly fascinating aromatic odor, which so attracted his callous enslaver's notice that she asked him what it was. "It is a mixture of my own, Madame," he replied. "I call it the last breath of love." The actress remarked that she would call him a fool, and he bowed and withdrew. A few minutes later, when she appeared behind the foot-lights, instead of the roar of applause which she expected, she was hailed with a tempestuous scream of laughter. Her discarded lover had had his revenge. He had dyed her golden locks with a chemical which turned pea green as soon as it was dry. She dresses what hair she has left herself now, while he is boss of a five-cent shaving emporium, never speaks to any lady but his landlady, and has a Chinaman to do his washing. If there is a ballet or a burlesque crowd or comic opera chorus in the theatre the scenes in their rooms will be of a more diversified nature. The girls in addition to making their faces pretty, must have their limbs so shapely that no fault can be found even by the most cavilling of the gentlemen who crowd up behind the orchestra while the house holds a host of female attractions. The rage for limb exhibitions rendered it necessary that some means should be devised to hide the calves or poorly turned ankles of the creatures whose limbs are displayed. Happily the symmetricals, as padded tights are called, were hit upon and now you cannot find an unsightly piece of underpinning in any combination, and even the poor ballet girl who does page's parts or helps to make up a crowd for $6 a week, will, if she has sense and taste, go early to the dealer in theatrical goods and have symmetricals made to suit the exigencies of her case. These artistic accessories of feminine fictitiousness are leggings or tights woven in such a manner the thickness of a deficient thigh, the pipe-stem character of a calf, are filled out with silk and cotton into shapefulness and beauty that Venus de Medici herself would not be ashamed to make a display of. I heard a story about an operatic artist who for a long time refused to play parts demanding the exhibition even of a fraction of a limb, and all because her lower members were too attenuated to attract anything else but ridicule. Lately she has found her way to the pad-maker's and now can present as pretty an ankle and as round a calf to the audience as sister artists who have more flesh and blood in their composition. Men as well as women patronize the pad-maker and any actor of the mashing persuasion who may have had to keep his bandy legs in wide pantaloons heretofore can now burst forth upon the sight of his adored in all the gorgeous loveliness and perfection of an attractive anatomy. [Illustration: MARIE ROZE.] CHAPTER VIII. WITHIN THE WINGS. [Illustration: IN THE GREEN ROOM.]