Betty's feet rested pleasurably on the thick rich carpet and her eyes went from easy chair to easy chair.
"My father ought to have this room," she said, "he writes the most beautiful books, and I know he'd write ever so many more if he lived here."
"Here's the book I got myself from," said John, advancing to a bookcase.
But Betty was oblivious of her errand. She lingered by the table, turning over the covers of the magazines, and picture after picture caught her eye.
One in particular she lingered over. It represented a bric-a-brac strewn room.
"The boudoir of Madam S——," it said.
"Oh!" exclaimed Betty, and dropped her sun-bonnet into her grandfather's chair. "Oh, John, when I've made myself, I'll have a room like this!"
She began to read and her eyes smiled. Then she sank down on the floor, carrying the book with her, and leaning her back against a table-leg she lost herself in an interview with Madam S——.
Madam replied to several searching questions blithely. She told a little story about her large family of brothers and sisters, their extreme poverty and her own inordinate love of music. Then there was a pathetic touch when sickness, poverty and hunger darkened the poor little home, and she, a mite of eight, had stood at a street corner in a foreign city and sung a simple song. A crowd had soon collected, and a keen-eyed, bent-shouldered man had been passing by hurriedly, and had stopped, caught by a "something" in the little singer's voice, and face, and attitude. He had finally pushed his way through the crowd and stood beside the little girl in the tattered frock.
That song and that interview had been the beginning of a great career. Hard work and small pay had intervened, but success had followed success, and now not one of her concerts to-day meant less to her than hundreds of pounds. Dukes threw flowers at her feet, Princes loaded her with diamond brooches, tiaras, necklaces, bangles; kings and queens and emperors "commanded her to sing before them," and gave her beautiful mementos.