Caroline started to her elbow again.
"My next appearance! and you say that! You! you! Oh! Mr. Brown, I did not think you would turn against me!"
"Turn against you, my child?" Tears trembled in the man's voice, and the words quivered on his lips as he added: "My poor darling. Do you not know that old Brown would die for you?"
"Then keep me from the stage; snatch me from a life that I loathe. I tell you, all this is against my nature. I have no genius to carry me forward, no ambition, no hope. Oh! that is gone, quite."
"But it is an honorable profession," faltered Brown, in his distress. "Think how many noble geniuses have found immortality on the stage."
"I know it, I know it well; but they were led that way, heart and soul, while I have no wish for fame or anything that it could bring. What does a woman want with immortality—above all, a poor young girl like me, whose very heart trembles in her bosom, when a crowd of strange eyes are turned upon her, as they were on me to-night?"
"But you will soon get over that."
"No. I never shall. This one night has broken up my life, and well nigh killed me. Let what may come, I will starve rather than tread that stage again."
"Hush! dear, hush! This passion will make you worse."
"But I mean it, Eliza, and I say it here and now, when you and Mr. Brown, the only friends I have on earth, are standing by. Think for me, Eliza, and you also, my kind, kind guardian!"