inform the countess that it was not "that sort."
"That sort" was a benefit which M?Variety
compelled all his people to take. It was written
down in the bond: so much a week and a benefit.
But why should compulsion ever be necessary
in such a case? Who ever heard of a person
refusing to take money when it is honestly
offered to him, and he has nothing to do but
hold out his hand for it? Well, the fact is,
the benefits which Mr. M?Variety so liberally
insisted upon all his people taking, were not
benefits for them, but for himself. It was an
understood thing that each member of the staff
should allow his name to be advertised for a
benefit, and that the nominal beneficiare should
use all his influence to secure a good attendance.

Beyond that, he had no interest in it. The
manager took the money. The outside public
would probably regard a transaction of this kind
as mean and shabby; but the idea of its being
anything but a matter of course never entered
Mr. M?Variety's head, or even the heads of his
company. It was a usage of the profession,
sanctified by time and custom. It is wonderful
how such usages permeate the so-called
profession to its topmost branches and its deepest
roots. In the theatrical body politic everybody
gets something out of somebody else by some
quiet sub rosa arrangement which never appears
aboveboard. You have seen poor wretched
broken-down men in the streets carrying
advertisement boards, sandwich fashion. Sharp
misery has worn them to the bone; their clothes
are mere shreds of dirty rags; hunger is in their
looks, palsy is in their limbs. They crawl along
with bent bodies and downcast eyes, as if they
were seeking some spot whereon to lie down
and die, some out-of-the-way dust-heap on which
to shoot their mortal rubbish. You doubt if
such poor, dilapidated, degraded tenements can
possibly lodge immortal souls. Yet even these
burlesques of humanity are victims to the
pervading usage, which begins with the leading
tragedian and the prima donna. They are down
in the manager's books for a shilling a day; but
there is a middle man who takes the contract,
and gives them ninepence.

When Madame Ernestine dismounted from
her trained steed Constant, she hastened to the
manager's room.

"Now, Monsieur M?Variety, about this benefit;
dites-moi, I am dying to know."

"Well, countess, I mean to do the thing
that's handsome."

"Half the receipts of the circus, eh?"

"Would you call that handsome?" Mr.
M?Variety asked; "the circus will hold fifty
pounds; the half of that is twenty-five."

"It is nothing, a bagatelle; but it is much
for you—for a manager to give without being
asked."

Madame Ernestine had not a high opinion of
managers; she believed that even their virtues
leaned to vice's side.

"What would you think, then," said M'Variety,
with a sly twinkle in his eye, "if I were to
give you the whole receipts of the circus?"

"What should I think? I should think,
Monsieur Mac, that you were un bon enfant, the
prince of managers, one who is all heart—un
ange—and something besides."

She paused, and added the last words slowly
and significantly.

"And what besides?" the manager asked.

"Why, Monsieur Mac, I should think
besides all this that you had your reasons. Ha!"

"Well, well," said Mr. M'Variety, waving
off his little attempt to assume the character of
a generous benefactor, "that's nothing to you,
you know. You shall have the benefit, and, if
you make good use of your swell friends, I don't
see why you shouldn't net a hundred pounds
by it."

"A hundred pounds! Ah! that is something!"
cried the countess; and her eyes glistened,
as if she had seen the money lying before
her in bright golden sovereigns.

"And mind," said M?Variety, "I shan't
charge you a farthing for expenses."

The manager made a merit of this, and the
countess was good enough to recognise it.

"Believe me, Monsieur Mac," she said, "I
appreciate your generosity; you will, on this
occasion, kindly refrain from helping yourself
to a share of that which does not belong to
you. That is a merit in a directeur, and I give
you credit for it. I could embrace you."

M?Variety was grateful for this reciprocation
of good feeling, but he was a little alarmed at
the hint of an embrace. He would as soon
have been embraced by a boa-constrictor or a
Bengal tiger.

"Well, then," he said, "consider everything
arranged."

"Fort bien," said the countess; "and the
day?"

"This day week," said the manager; "the
last night of the season—Friday."

CHAPTER LIII. THE LITTLE BIRD.

No woman, however amiable her disposition,
or however loving her nature, could have entertained
a sentiment of affection for Mr. Francis
Blunt, once she came to know him and fathom
the depths of his base and worthless character.
Francis Blunt married Mademoiselle Valérie, a
gay, heartless, unscrupulous, pleasure-loving
actress of the Paris theatres. Estrangement
and separation were inevitable. Blunt, like
many other vain fools, had an ambition to marry
an actress, and he married one. Mademoiselle
Valérie had an ambition to marry a rich English
milord who could keep her in luxury and
splendour, and she married the man who seemed
to fulfil her desires. But both were deceived.
Sitting in his box and gazing at her in her
paint and smiles on the stage, Blunt thought
Valérie an angel. Sitting by his own fireside,
linked to her by the bonds of holy matrimony
—save the mark!—and gazing at her without
her paint and her smiles, he found her a devil.
Meeting Blunt behind the scenes and at gay
supper-parties, where he spent his money like
water, and was lionised and addressed as milord,