“You, Helen!” exclaimed her father, in undisguised amazement.
“Yes, papa. I have been wanting to tell you all this morning; but I hardly knew how.”
“I don’t understand. Have you ever sung there?”
“Last night, for the first time.”
Helen proceeded to give her father a circumstantial account of her interview with the manager, her repulse at first, and her subsequent engagement. She added that she had hesitated to tell him, lest he should object to her accepting it. She next spoke of her first appearance upon the stage,—how at first she was terrified at sight of the crowded audience, but had succeeded in overcoming her timidity, and lost all consciousness of her trying position in the enjoyment of singing.
“You have forgotten one thing, Helen,” said her father, gravely. “You have not told me what first gave you the idea of singing in public.”
“It was Martha,” said Helen, in some embarrassment, foreseeing what was coming. “One day I sang in her room, and she was so well pleased, that she told me I might one day become a public singer.”
“And that was all, Helen?”
“What else should there be, papa?” she answered, evasively.
“Indeed, I do not know. I thought it might be because you supposed we were poor, and wished to earn some money. But you see, Helen, there is no need of that;” and he drew out his pocket-book, and displayed to the child’s astonished gaze the roll of bills which Mr. Sharp had insisted on loaning him the day previous.