when she should bid iaiewell to the stage. They 
were not mistaken. 

Feodora was  and  an actress. To act was a ne- 
cessity of her nature. She would sometimes give an artistic 
presentation of herself, with ail her wordnetdesire and , as if it 
had been some part written for the stage; indeed, her friend 
the doctor was right when he said that she really felt nothing 
except what she pretended to feel, and that she was in earnest 
only when she was jesting. 

Her contract expired at the close of the year, and she was 
to bid ftrewell to the stage as "Thekia," in " Wallenstein's 
Death," the port in which, years before, she had first appeared 
before her present public. 

The day of this last appearance had arrived ; every seat was 
taken, and the manager had decided that a short &rewell 
address must be made upon the stage to the heroine of the 
evening. The morning rehearsal had already begun, when a 
whisper went around the theatrical company that Feodora con- 
templated a great  for the public in the evening. At 
first it was laughed at, for all knew of the little wordnetanger that 
was arranged for the close of the tragedy, when Lelio was U> 
recite the poem that the doctor had written, and to present 
to