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 till the last week of her engagement at the Varolium. From it she was going to Berlin, from Berlin to Petersburg, from Petersburg to Rome, and from Rome to Australia.

During that last week both she and the Honorable John Ruffin were much quieter as they supped together after the theater than they had used to be; their eyes lingered on each other in clinging glances. Pollyooly observed their fallen spirits with sympathy; she was sorrowful herself at the coming departure of the Esmeralda. But she took it as a matter of course that the Esmeralda must go, that their work must sunder them. Life was like that. It is to be doubted that either the Esmeralda or the Honorable John Ruffin took their approaching severance in as resigned a spirit.

The Esmeralda had not abandoned her plan that Pollyooly should learn to become a dancer; and many were the discussions the friends of Pollyooly held about the matter. The Honorable John Ruffin made prevail his idea that a fund should be established from which to pay her teachers; and slowly he brought it about that each of them should fix his yearly subscription to it at the lowest he could