The wife’s card said “Madame Mère.”
Erminia Chelli is not more than nineteen; she is a Venetian, and by lengthening her legs in the trapeze she has acquired the supreme grace in walking, the elegant proportions, which are usually rather lacking in Italians The bust is youthful yet charming, the neck delicate; the little dark head is proudly carried upon shoulders which the trapeze has rendered supple without unduly developing the shoulder blades. Since the appearance of Oceana no one of such perfect proportions has been seen in either of the circuses or the Hippodrome. The beauty of Oceana was, perhaps, a little more individual and original; but Erminia is better bred and more typical. [p234]
“She is her father’s pupil,” Madame Chelli, her mother informed me, as she assisted Erminia in putting on a large pelisse. “She began to appear in public when she was quite a little girl. . . .”
As she spoke an equestrian came in to tell them that the net was being prepared for Mademoiselle Chelli’s performance.
Erminia threw off her mantle, and with the caressing tones [p235] of a young girl, a little seriously and gravely, she went up to her mother and put her arms round her neck:
“Addio, mamma,” she said, kissing her.
A little surprised, I inquired:
“Is this a superstition, Madame Chelli?”
“No one knows,” the mother answered. “It has been her custom since childhood.”