Show The Prima focus In a Oitamlnrj 1 You speak truly Mr Yorrck The applause ap-plause of the critical public is gratifying tome to-me as an artist but it does not touch the heart Nothing so moves mo as the unobtrusive unob-trusive admiration and affection of my true friendsthose who value me for myself alone as expressed in the warm grasp of tho hand the kindling eye and the sympathetic voice I am glad to hear you say so Miss Cecilia I if I may venture to address you in so familiar I a way responded the young man somewhat tremulously It gives me courage to speak I I of a subject that has long been uppermost in my thoughts I I 1 Alasper Yorick hitched slightly forward in his chair swallowed a large hunkthatiu sono I unaccountable manner was obstructing his I throat and continued Tho multitude is wildly demonstrative but fickle It is no wonder your glorious I voice stirs all hearts and moves to rapture the listening thousands who hang as it were I upon your lips Yet if you should lose that marvelous voice you would be in thcerjou I would cease to be popular idoL You would soon be only a fleeting memory Bat the devotion de-votion of a true heart is something that outlasts I out-lasts the ravages of time The lovely prima donna her lustrous soul ful eyes gazing dreamily into those of the infatuated in-fatuated youth as if her vision penetiated through them into his inmost being and out over the landscape beyond for miles and miles bowed her beautiful bead slowly but made no reply I Emboldened by her manner the young man threw himself at her feet and burst forth Cecilia Von Dumpenshleiger I am only one of your hosts of passionate devoted admirers ad-mirers but not one of them would cherish yon with a tenderness surpassing mine Not one of them in a million has tho capacity to love you as I do If the refuge of a fond faithful deathless devotion can console you in the hour when your matchless sopiauo voice with its faultless upper register and chest tones of unequaled timbre kind ofaw peters out you know and when the pearl like radiance of your complexion fades into a leathery hue Mr Yorick murmured the pima donna still looking dreamily through him into vacancy va-cancy believing you as I do to be a true friend I wish to ask your ndvico upon a matter mat-ter of some moment Is it possible ho gasped that you have not been listening to what 1 My friend Enid the gifted qtinen of song her eyes luminous with unshed tears and her liquid sympathetic voice tinged with an indefinable in-definable shade of melancholy thrilling him to the soul the manufacturers of tho Sure Death toFreckles toilet soap have offered mo the pitiful sum 1000 for my signature testifying tes-tifying to its merits Would you take it Mr Yorick or stick out for 0 000 T Chtcao Tribune |