The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1889-07-31
PHRASE.

When one comes Of family OF ballet dan
GERS, one comprehends that life has its in
capabilities. Not Of fortune-no. bat of fate
Frequenters OF the eoulisses at the Chatelet
still remember a certain 'Phrasie--a girl OF
49, modest, slim, quiet eyed--who used to
wait with her sisters cloaks at the wings.
She did not dance herself; whenonly baby
she had turned her ankle in practicing her
little steps under her mothers tutelage--oh,
that hard, green eyed Mere Crugeaudi--and
though she had grown up a beauty, marvel
of grace and symmetry, the ankle was stiff
what you, mesdames, who dance at the Hotel
Continental, would have called supple The
Crugeaud family called it stiff See tberei
Hundreds, thousands Of francs lost for little
thickening of bone. So 'Phrasie sold how-
ers, and went on sometimes as page. II
she had only had a talent for acting But
dancing was the sole talent of the Crugeaud
family.
For girl of no more than sixteen to dis
appear? You conceive, at tho time, what
surmises, what astonishmenti Not but what
many people could tell you where she was;
all, to certainty They could tell you, but
they did not Him, hml you don't lSnowl
Stall go over the jena bridge, turn to your
oracles, you see, must observe approved me-
thods. However, 'Phrasie was soon forgotten
by the chorus girls and pompiers and fire.
quenters Of the coulisses of them--and
when the Crugeauds said TINT she had gone
TO America they were laughed at. All, yes,
America lies across the Seine-and Vile
d'Avray is its capital
But one Sunday morning, not iossg ago,
Madeleine Crugeaud--she is the oldest-~she
played MademoiselIe Apollon, In L'0lympe
Aux Femmes, you remember--took her cigar
cite from her straight lips at Vile d'Avray,
and said, earelsssly, but eAndidlys 81 tell
you, Phrasie never came here; she went 10
America; she is in America now--at Phila-
delphia:"
"Ah, that And why did she go to Amer
lea, thenf'
''Shall tell your said Madeleine, still
carelessly. "To avoid tho CONSUMPTION, mon
cherp'
Yes, 1t was to avoid the CONSUMPTION that
white aproncd flower girl, an exile from
her native violets and marguerites, yet find
ing home among the sweet meadow flowers
Of foreign land, sat In the doorway OF O
huge financial palace In the broad, strag-
Cling, rectangular city which Penn, the
Quaker, dedicated to peace and brotherly
love. Money rules in Philadelphia now
money, and strange fertile renaissance,
which erects colossal and daring temples TO
the Quaker Mammon.
The glttering streets are long and straight
and narrow, but the populace expands and
spreads itself out, laughing nasally but
joyously, in the broad wooded parks and the
rich grass fields that surround the city To
these parks and fields iPhrasie came In the
early, dreaming spring mornings, mornings
touched with light, inconstant haze, 30 soon
to slip away before the SUMS smile, and gath
cred her violets and lilac sprays, returning
still early with a full basket TO the great
thoroughfare, Chestnut street. She break
tasted on the swift train that bore her back
to the city, q moment suf1iced 10 eat her
frugal rolls and fruit. And when she arrived
at her doorway she sat down and sang to her
self, under her breaths 80
10 ne suis plus Ia Mariolaine.
It had been on the impulse OF a sudden
moment Of temptation and horror that this
Marguerite of the coulisses had fed to save
herself to land which she knew only
by name. Poverty, i'll fortunes oppression
these one can fight against and still cling TO
ones home; but when ones home itself, ones
mother
A,d srat =, o,,Ie s,,t.. Va .,.,, .,,,
s,,a A. - Ia 90 .s,.t -.
tn,,aa ~ so,,nd q, bar ~ % ~, ho,,s.t Ne.
.at' - - ~.
,,;,s,,ss t,'e,,,.,' oas,..;a;a,'a,. go hais a,'
;an,,,, thamqh har adontod "l $500 !. '' liz
Is ,arv o. aoo.,r"s,as 49, ..,a,.a,'
ia.s ~ eS"aS 49,. s.v.s''
ics and cleric come ana nsSe gova ~ ,,a,.
--ah, but an honest love, you comprehend, an
open, young Jacques Bonhomme love, without
frenzy or deceit-the sort Of love that Is 80
rare at the Chatelet, except in the brains Of
some of the vaudeville writers, and there it
stays-in spite Of all this, an exile regrets, her
heart Is heavy, and the vioiets In her basket
swim into a faint blue cloud as her eyes gaze
over them far away into land Of poplars.
And the young clerks and mechanics, could
no one Of them remove the cloudf
One day there came down Chestnut street
a new figure; 'Phrasie had never seen 1t be-
fore among all the fianeursan hurrying men
of business A tall mana militaire, quoil--
bronzed, sinewy, superbiy handsome, with a
long, slow step that carried him quietly past
other pedestrians BE had the air Of ain eagle,
and q silken, black lnustache covered his
mouth. ,Phrasie stopped in her singing.
The militaire halted as he espied her basket.
He bought bunch of violets and fixed them