unlimited flare of gas. Here was our door, with
the epigraph ''BOXES," on which played
unsteadily, a lamp. A few people were standing
about, one or two entering, and yet on the whole
there was not the furore we counted on. What a
fragrance again as we entered the passages,
skirted by whitewashed walls, and sprinkled
ever so delicately with sawdust,—a fragrance
compounded of orange-peel, and a delicate
aroma of gas, together with a damp vaultish
savour, inexpressibly sweet. And then the
check-taker; how courtly, how noble in his
bearing (I believe him now to have been a very
earthy creature, sadly corrupted with gin); and
above all, the Unseen Hand that so mysteriously
absorbed our moneys into that awful window!
Another moment, and we are in the theatre!
Exquisite sensation! Something between awe
and a thrill, and yet ravishing delight,
curiously compounded, as the somewhat murky
interior gradually opened on us. And yet,
though now it was something approaching to
darkness, yet then it was more a subdued light
and delicious sense of mystery. It must have
been a raw and cavernous temple; somewhat,
as I now suspect, broken out into moist
patches and damp eruptions, with an universal
unwholesomeness as to the plaster. The green
curtain was mean, and a little ragged, and
an unwholesome air seemed to float from the
pit. But I saw none of these imperfections—
it was all divine, sacred, and we gazed with
ineffable reverence, and waited for the dog.
Dimly does it now come back to us that there
was not an overwhelming audience: which
indifference to the claims of the drama affected us
with secret wonder.

When our eyes had been satiated with the
natural beauties of the scene, they found a sort of
relief in wandering to the orchestra, which was
now filling in slowly. I am bound to say, that
the divine cloud did not seem to enclose those
members of human society; but stopped short
with the stage. Still, though regarding them
with a certain familiarity, and as more or less
mortal, they seemed lifted above our humanity,
and formed a link between us and that brighter
sphere to which they led the way. Even their
entrance—how mysterious!—was out of the
bowels of the earth.

And yet, looking back now, taking them for
all in all, I am afraid they were not what would
be called an efficient orchestra. I fancy five or
six was their full strength; but no secret enemy
can say that on that night they did not do their
best. But the whole responsibility seemed to
lie upon one member, who seemed to take upon
himself more duty than was perhaps necessary
for the complete balance of the parts. He sat
apart, and long before the performance
commenced, preludised softly to himself. His
instrument was the cornet.

I am confident the music he discoursed was of
a harsh, and what might be called an ad libitum
nature. None of the Band, I am confident, were
shackled by the stupid conventionalities of notes
or staves; and yet the effect seemed to be very
beautiful. Too much—a responsibility almost
unfair—seemed to be thrown upon the shoulders
of the drum—I mean upon the performer who
made that instrument discourse. He never
relaxed; but when there was even a hint of failing,
came in splendidly to the rescue. Someway
the wielder of the cornet attracted me more
powerfully. He seemed more conscientious;
yet this might be fanciful. There was something
odd about his appearance that drew us to
him with wonder. He always presented to us
who were above, a sort of second face, for he
was abruptly and shiningly bald; and the effect
to us, was as of a small private pool or pond,
surrounded with banks of rich verdure. He had
a hopeless expression, as though he were blowing
himself steadily to his grave, and at the same time
a stern purpose in his blast, as though he were
blowing a scanty subsistence for a numerous
offspring at home, A few scattered brambles grew
upon his upper lip, in the nature of a moustache,
and he affected us with sadness.

It was a gloomy piece naturally, alas! I speak
of the cold maturer view—with that Forest of
Bondy in the dead of night, and a good deal
of losing of their way by belated parties, and
much measured speech, recriminating, defiant,
and in various other keys; and yet how
absorbing, how even fascinating, the whole history.
How we sympathised with the noble Aubrey
(he was captain in the French service at some
indistinct period, when a large field of white
facings was worn in front), who used literally to
chant his heroic sentiments in a sort of
measured strain. And was he not proprietor of the
renowned dog Cæsar? Aubrey—the name
Captain Aubrey, how musical, how melodious! It
embodied all that was chivalrous, grand, gallant.
Even in the bearing of that other officer in the
same regiment, a man in whose breast every
spark of manly principle seemed dead, and who
was consumed with an unworthy jealousy of the
noble Aubrey, even in him (he had large white
facings too) we had that interest which attaches
to bold reckless villany. It was impossible not
to admire secretly, when the noble Aubrey was
forced into a duel with him and actually won
the first fire, how he—was his name Lesparre,
or something in that key?—took his place with
folded arms and without changing a muscle.
We knew, as he knew well, that the noble
Aubrey had his life at his command—and we
gasped. A feeling, however, that was changed
into uncontrollable admiration when the noble
Aubrey discharged his weapon in the air,
remarking at the same moment that "thus it was
that Aubrey avenged himself upon his friend."
Which admiring feeling was in no wise
diminished by the fact that for the rest of the
evening the air was charged with the sulphurous
results of the explosion.

From the way in which the Captain—shall we
say Lesparre?—received this advance, we gave
him up. He must have been radically a bad
man, and we were not surprised when the night
drew on, and the noble Aubrey had to pass
through the Forest of Bondy on urgent private