"I hope so, dear!" said Mrs. Penrose, settling her hair. She had pretty hair, and did not like to have it disarranged. "But you are not wicked, Sue. What is the matter, my dear?"
But Sue, after one more almost strangling embrace, ran out of the room. She felt suffocated. She must have one moment of relief before she went. Dashing back to her room, she flung herself upon her journal.
"I go!" she wrote. "I go because I have sworn it, and I may not break my word. It is a dreadful thing that I do, but it is my fate that bekons. I don't believe I am a foundling, after all, and I don't care if I am. Mamma is just perfectly sweet; and if I should live, I should never, never, never let her know that I had found it out. Adieu!
"The unfortunate
"Susan Penrose".
After making a good flourish under her name, Sue felt a little better; still, her heart was heavy enough as she put on her pretty hat with the brown ostrich-feathers, which went so well with her pongee dress. At least, she looked nice, she thought; that was some comfort.
The circus was a good one, and for a time Sue forgot everything else in the joy of looking on. The tumbling! She had never dreamed of such tumbling. And the jumping over three, four, six elephants standing together! Each time it seemed impossible, out of the question, that the thing could be done. Each time her heart stood still for an instant, and then bounded furiously as the lithe, elastic form passed like an arrow over the broad brown backs, and lighted on its feet surely, gracefully, with a smile and a courtly gesture of triumph. That one in the pale blue silk tights—could he really be human, and go about on other days clad like other men?
Then, the wonderful jokes of the clown! Never was anything so funny, Sue thought. But the great, the unspeakable part, was when the Signora Fiorenza, the Queen of Flame, rode lightly into the arena on her milk-white Arabian charger. Such beauty Sue had never dreamed of; and, indeed, the Signora (whose name was Betsy Hankerson) was a handsome young woman enough, and her riding-habit of crimson velvet, if a little worn and rubbed, was still effective and becoming. To Sue's eyes it seemed an imperial robe, fit for coronations and great state banquets, or for scenes of glory like this.
Round and round the Signora rode, bending graciously from the saddle, receiving with smiling composure the compliments of the clown.
"Well, madam! how did you manage to escape the police?"
"The police, sir?"