“‘Who is she?’ ‘Where did she come from?’ were the questions I heard, in whispers, all around me; for many of the audience were Germans, Frenchmen and Jews, all passionate lovers of music, and to them the ushering in of a new star in the artistic firmament is equal to a new world born before the eyes of an astronomer.

“When she left the stage there was a rush of the privileged artists for the green-room.  I followed them.  There I found the little singer standing by the side of a middle-aged, careworn woman, evidently her mother, for she was carefully adjusting a poor, thin cloak over the girl’s shoulders, while a swarm of devotees, including many debauched old gallants, crowded around, pouring forth streams of compliments, which Christina heard with pleased face and downcast eyes.

“I kept in the background, watching the scene.  There was something about this child that moved me strangely.  True, I tried to pooh-pooh away the sentiment, and said to myself:  ’Why bother your head about her?  She is one of the “refuse;” she will go down into the dark ditch with the rest, baseness to baseness linked.’  But when I looked at the modest, happy face, the whole poise of the body—­for every fiber of the frame of man or woman partakes of the characteristics of the soul—­I could not hold these thoughts steadily in my mind.  And I said to myself:  ’If she is as pure as she looks I will watch over her.  She will need a friend in these scenes.  Here success is more dangerous than misery.’

“And so, when Christina and her mother left the theater, I followed them, but at a respectful distance.  They called no carriage, and there were no cars going their way; but they trudged along, and I followed them; a weary distance it was—­through narrow and dirty streets and back alleys—­until at last they stopped at the door of a miserable tenement-house.  They entered, and like a shadow I crept noiselessly behind them.  Up, up they went; floor after floor, until the topmost garret was reached.  Christina gave a glad shout; a door flew open; she entered a room that seemed to be bursting with children; and I could hear the broader voice of a man, mingled with ejaculations of childish delight, as Christina threw down her gifts of gold and silver on the table, and told in tones of girlish ecstasy of her great triumph, calling ever and anon upon her mother to vouch for the truth of her wonderful story.  And then I had but time to shrink back into a corner, when a stout, broad-shouldered man, dressed like a workingman, rushed headlong down the stairs, with a large basket in his hand, to the nearest eating-house; and he soon returned bearing cooked meats and bread and butter, and bottles of beer, and pastry, the whole heaped up and running over the sides of the basket.  And oh, what a tumult of joy there was in that room!  I stood close to the closed door and listened.  There was the hurry-scurry of many feet, little and big, as they set the table; the quick commands; the clatter