as her disadvantages of—Hair, and—Figure. A
younger and move attractive representative of
Julia, would no doubt be easily found. In the
mean time, all persons concerned had her full
forgiveness; to which she would only beg leave to
add her best and kindest wishes for the success
of the play.

In four nights more the play was to be
performed. If ever any human enterprise stood in
need of good wishes to help it, that enterprise
was unquestionably the theatrical entertainment
at Evergreen Lodge!

One arm-chair was allowed on the stage; and,
into that arm-chair, Miss Marrable sank, preparatory
to a fit of hysterics. Magdalen stepped
forward at the first convulsion; snatched the
letter from Miss Marrable's hand; and stopped
the threatened catastrophe.

"She's an ugly, bald-headed, malicious, middle-
aged wretch," said Magdalen, tearing the letter
into fragments, and tossing them over the heads
of the company. " But I can tell her one thing
—she shan't spoil the play. I'll act Julia."

"Bravo!" cried the chorus of gentlemen—the
anonymous gentleman who had helped to do the
mischief (otherwise Mr. Francis Clare) loudest of
all.

"If you want the truth, I don't shrink from
owning it," continued Magdalen. " I'm one of
the ladies she means. I said she had a head
like a mop, and a waist like a bolster. So she
has."

"I am the other lady," added the spinster-
relative. " But I only said she was too stout for
the part ."

"I am the gentleman," chimed in Frank,
stimulated by the force of example. " I said
nothing—I only agreed with the ladies."

Here Miss Garth seized her opportunity, and
addressed the stage loudly from the pit.

"Stop! stop!" she said. " You can't settle
the difficulty in that way. If Magdalen plays
Julia who is to play Lucy?"

Miss Marrable sank back in the arm-chair,
and gave way to the second convulsion.

"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Magdalen; " the
thing's simple enough. I'll act Julia and Lucy
both together."

The manager was consulted on the spot.
Suppressing Lucy's first entrance, and turning the
short dialogue about the novels into a soliloquy
for Lydia Languish, appeared to be the only
changes of importance necessary to the
accomplishment of Magdalen's project. Lucy's two
telling scenes at the end of the first and second
acts, were sufficiently removed from the scenes in
which Julia appeared, to give time for the necessary
transformations in dress. Even Miss Garth,
though she tried hard to find them, could put no
fresh obstacles in the way. The question was
settled in five minutes, and the rehearsal went
on; Magdalen learning Julia's stage situations
with the book in her hand, and announcing afterwards,
on the journey home, that she proposed
sitting up all night to study the new part.
Frank thereupon expressed his fears that she
would have no time left to help him through his
theatrical difficulties. She tapped him on the
shoulder coquettishly with her part. "You
foolish fellow, how am I to do without you?
You're Julia's jealous lover; you're always
making Julia cry. Come to-night, and make me
cry at tea-time. You haven't got a venomous
old woman in a wig to act with now. It's my
heart you're to break—and of course I shall teach
you how to do it."

The four days' interval passed busily in
perpetual rehearsals, public and private. The night
of performance arrived; the guests assembled;
the great dramatic experiment stood on its trial.
Magdalen had made the most of her opportunities:
she had learnt all that the manager could
teach her in the time. Miss Garth left her when
the overture began, sitting apart in a corner
behind the scenes, serious and silent, with her
smelling-bottle in one hand, and her book in the
other, resolutely training herself for the coming
ordeal, to the very last.

The play began, with all the proper accompaniments
of a theatrical performance in private life;
with a crowded audience, an African temperature,
a bursting of heated lamp-glasses, and a difficulty
in drawing up the curtain. "Fag" and "the
Coachman," who opened the scene, took leave
of their memories as soon as they stepped on
the stage; left half their dialogue unspoken;
came to a dead pause; were audibly entreated
by the invisible manager to "come off;" and
went off accordingly, in every respect sadder
and wiser men than when they went on.
The next scene disclosed Miss Marrable as
"Lydia Languish," gracefully seated, very pretty,
beautifully dressed, accurately mistress of the
smallest words in her part; possessed, in short,
of every personal resource—except her voice.
The ladies admired, the gentlemen applauded.
Nobody heard anything, but the words " Speak
up, Miss," whispered by the same voice which
had already entreated Fag and the Coachman to
"come off." A responsive titter rose among the
younger spectators; checked immediately by
magnanimous applause. The temperature of
the audience was rising to Blood Heat—but the
national sense of fair play was not boiled out of
them yet.

In the midst of the demonstration, Magdalen
quietly made her first entrance, as " Julia." She
was dressed very plainly in dark colours, and wore
her own hair; all stage adjuncts and alterations
(excepting the slightest possible touch of rouge on
her cheeks) having been kept in reserve, to
disguise her the more effectually in her second part.
The grace and simplicity of her costume, the steady
self-possession with which she looked out over the
eager rows of faces before her, raised a low hum
of approval and expectation. She spoke—after
suppressing a momentary tremor—with a quiet
distinctness of utterance which reached all ears,
and which at once confirmed the favourable
impression that her appearance had produced. The
one member of the audience who looked at her