She stood there waiting, not bored in the least, familiar with her audience, falling into step with them at once, as though she herself were admitting with a wink that she had not two farthings' worth of talent but that it did not matter at all, that, in fact, she had other good points.

And then after having made a sign to the conductor which plainly signified, "Go ahead, old boy!" she began her second verse: "'Tis Venus who at midnight passes--" Still the same acidulated voice, only that now it tickled the public in the right quarter so deftly that momentarily it caused them to give a little shiver of pleasure.

Nana still smiled her smile: it lit up her little red mouth and shone in her great eyes, which were of the clearest blue.

When she came to certain rather lively verses a delicate sense of enjoyment made her tilt her nose, the rosy nostrils of which lifted and fell, while a bright flush suffused her cheeks.

She still swung herself up and down, for she only knew how to do that.