Dorothy breathed a sigh of relief when Mary Mahon's number was announced.
Mary was actually quivering with excitement. She wanted to act, and
Dorothy was confident that she would do well.
Her recitation was entitled "Guilty or Not Guilty?" and as she stepped out
and made her bow, the house was hushed in silence. In a plaintive voice
she began that well-known poem:
"She stood at the bar of justice,
A creature wan and wild,
In form too young for a woman,
In feature too old for a child."
How the lines seemed to suit her! Surely the features of Mary were too old
for those of a child. Her face had a drawn, pinched look, and her eyes
were so deeply set.
But the pathos of her voice! When she pleaded with the judge for mercy
against the charge that she was a thief she mentioned the starving
children.
"I took--oh, was it stealing?--
The bread to give to them!"
The women pressed their handkerchiefs to their eyes. There was something
almost too real in the child's plea. Who was she? they asked. A
professional?
Dorothy was delighted at Mary's success. The girl was her "find," and it
was she who had taught her how to use her voice so well in the pathetic
lines. True, she found an apt pupil in Mary, and Dorothy was but too glad
to accord her the entire triumph, when the recitationist bowed again in
response to the hearty applause and retired.
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