with approval. He tucked the play under his
arm, and clapped his hands gaily; the gentlemen,
clustered together behind the scenes, followed
his example; the ladies looked at each other
with dawning doubts whether they had not
better have left the new recruit in the retirement
of private life. Too deeply absorbed in the
business of the stage to heed any of them,
Magdalen asked leave to repeat the soliloquy, and
make quite sure of her own improvement. She
went all through it again, without a mistake,
this time, from beginning to end; the manager
celebrating her attention to his directions by an
outburst of professional approbation, which escaped
him in spite of himself. "She can take
a hint!" cried the little man, with a hearty
smack of his hand on the prompt-book. "She's
a born actress, if ever there was one yet!"

"I hope not," said Miss Garth to herself,
taking up the work which had dropped into her
lap, and looking down at it in some perplexity.
Her worst apprehension of results in connexion
with the theatrical enterprise, had foreboded
levity of conduct with some of the gentlemen—
she had not bargained for this. Magdalen, in
the capacity of a thoughtless girl, was comparatively
easy to deal with. Magdalen, in the
character of a born actress, threatened serious
future difficulties.

The rehearsal proceeded. Lucy returned to
the stage for her scenes in the second act (the
last in which she appears) with Sir Lucius and
Fag. Here, again, Magdalen's inexperience
betrayed itself—and here once more her resolution
in attacking and conquering her own mistakes
astonished everybody. "Bravo!" cried
the gentlemen behind the scenes, as she steadily
trampled down one blunder after another.
"Ridiculous!" said the ladies, "with such a
small part as hers." "Heaven forgive me!"
thought Miss Garth, coming round unwillingly
to the general opinion. "I almost wish we were
Papists, and had a convent to put her in
tomorrow." One of Mr. Marrable's servants
entered the theatre as that desperate aspiration
escaped the governess. She instantly sent the
man behind the scenes with a message:—"Miss
Vanstone has done her part in the rehearsal:
request her to come here, and sit by me." The
servant returned with a polite apology:—"Miss
Vanstone's kind love, and she begs to be excused
—she's prompting Mr. Clare." She prompted
him to such purpose that he actually got through
his part. The performances of the other gentlemen
were obtrusively imbecile. Frank was just
one degree better—he was modestly incapable;
and he gained by comparison. "Thanks to Miss
Vanstone," observed the manager, who had heard
the prompting. "She pulled him through. We
shall be flat enough, at night, when the drop falls
on the second act, and the audience have seen
the last of her. It's a thousand pities she hasn't
got a better part!"

"It's a thousand mercies she's no more to do
than she has," muttered Miss Garth, overhearing
him. "As things are, the people can't well turn
her head with applause. She's out of the play in
the second act—that's one comfort!"

No well-regulated mind ever draws its inferences
in a hurry; Miss Garth's mind was well
regulated; therefore, logically speaking, Miss
Garth ought to have been superior to the weakness
of rushing at conclusions. She had committed
that error, nevertheless, under present circumstances.
In plainer terms, the consoling reflection
which had just occurred to her, assumed that the
play had by this time survived all its disasters,
and entered on its long-deferred career of success.
The play had done nothing of the sort. Misfortune
and the Marrable family had not parted company
yet.

When the rehearsal was over, nobody observed
that the stout lady with the wig privately withdrew
herself from the company; and when she
was afterwards missed from the table of refreshments,
which Mr. Marrable's hospitality kept
ready spread in a room near the theatre, nobody
imagined that there was any serious reason for
her absence. It was not till the ladies and gentlemen
assembled for the next rehearsal, that the
true state of the case was impressed on the minds
of the company. At the appointed hour, no
Julia appeared. In her stead, Mrs. Marrable
portentously approached the stage, with an open
letter in her hand. She was naturally a lady of
the mildest good breeding: she was mistress of
every bland conventionality in the English language
—but disasters and dramatic influences
combined, threw even this harmless matron off
her balance at last. For the first time in her life
Mrs. Marrable indulged in vehement gesture, and
used strong language. She handed the letter
sternly, at arm's length, to her daughter. "My
dear," she said, with an aspect of awful
composure, "we are under a Curse." Before the
amazed dramatic company could petition for an
explanation, she turned, and left the room. The
manager's professional eye followed her out
respectfully—he looked as if he approved of the
exit, from a theatrical point of view.

What new misfortune had befallen the play?
The last and worst of all misfortunes had assailed
it. The stout lady had resigned her part.

Not maliciously. Her heart, which had been
in the right place throughout, remained inflexibly
in the right place still. Her explanation of the
circumstances proved this, if nothing else did.
The letter began with a statement:—She had
overheard, at the last rehearsal (quite unintentionally),
personal remarks of which she was the
subject. They might, or might not, have had
reference to her—Hair; and her—Figure. She
would not distress Mrs. Marrable by repeating
them. Neither would she mention names,
because it was foreign to her nature to make bad
worse. The only course at all consistent with
her own self-respect, was to resign her part. She
enclosed it accordingly to Mrs. Marrable, with
many apologies for her presumption in
undertaking a youthful character, at—what a gentleman
was pleased to term—her Age; and with what
two ladies were rude enough to characterise