Lucia, the Organ-Maiden. 85

had not been so sad. However, people still
seemed to like to see her dance, and crowded
about the organ whenever she began.

One bitterly cold day, Lucia, her bones aching,
was about to make her bow, when she felt some-
thing svzaf in her back, and instead of bowing for-
ward, she bowed backward! It was with the
greatest difficulty that she stood upright again,
and went on with the dance. But from that time
on, she always bowed the same way, backward
and not forward. She had no idea how very funny
she looked, and when she heard the shout from
the people who were watching her, she supposed,
of course, it was a shout of delight, such as she
had heard many times in her life, and her poor
little cold heart warmed at the sound.

One day, by accident, her window was broken,
and of course not mended. So poor Lucia had
to dance in her drawing-room with the dust and
bitter, biting cold blowing in through the hole.
It was a frightful experience for her, with her
rheumatism, and dressed in the thinnest of thin
tulles with no underclothes to speak of. Through