Finishing steps.
begin in May, and, as soon as it is known that Mr. D'Auban wants children, he is besieged by parents with little maids of all sizes. The School Board only allows them to attend two days a week; but Mr. D'Auban says: "Everything I teach them once is practised at home and brought back perfect to me." The children wear their ordinary dress, and practising shoes of any kind are allowed. First the positions are mastered, then chassés, pirouettes, and all the rest of the rhythmic and delicate movements of which ballets consist.
Many of these graceful little dancers are the real bread winners of the family. Little Minnie Burley, whose charming dancing in the "Rose and the Ring" will be remembered, though only eleven years old, has for more than a year practically supported herself and her mother by her earnings. The mother suffers from an incurable spinal complaint, and, beyond a little help which she gets from another daughter who is in service, has nothing to live upon but the little one's earnings. During the double performance of the "Rose and the Ring," Minnie earned £1 5s. a week; now she is earning as a Maypole dancer in "Maid Marian" 12s. a week; but her engagement will soon end, and the poor little maiden, who has the sense and foresight of a woman of thirty, is getting rather anxious.
She is a serious-faced, dark-eyed child, very sensible, very self-possessed, and passionately fond of dancing. Her mother is devoted to her, and keeps her exquisitely neat. I asked her whether she did not feel a little nervous about the child coming home alone every night from the Strand.
"No," said Mrs. Burley, "you see, she comes by 'bus, and she knows how to take care of herself—she knows she is not to let anyone talk to her."
A figure of pavanne.
Minnie is a type of dozens of other hard-working, modest little girls who are supporting themselves, and very often their families, by dancing. As a rule, the mothers fetch the children, or make arrangements for several to come home together. Many of them, whose husbands have been out of work, or who are widows, or deserted, have assured me they could not possibly have got through the winter without the children's earnings, whilst the children themselves are immensely proud of "helping" mother. The pride they take in their parts is also very amusing. One small girl ran after me the whole length of a street. She reached me breathless, saying, "Don't forget I'm principal butterfly." Another small
