been at the Thespian now goin' on for three
months. I had long been wishful of getting
some occkypation for myself. And hearing of
a dresser being wanted here, I applied, and the
housekeeper she conferred the vacation upon
me immediate."

It was odd to see how Mrs. Hutchins's old
passion for the high-flown and romantic had
survived the Flukian era, and was still strong
and vigorous. Only her affections had been
transferred from Rosalba of Naples and that
interesting sisterhood to the heroines of the
drama. Mrs. Hutchins generally had in her
pocket a small paper-covered book—one of the
gems of Cumberland's acting edition, or Mr.
Lacy's more modern dramas. And these she
devoured in the old manner that belonged to
her; a manner that may, perhaps, be
characterised as the slatternly-sentimental. Betty,
knitting away at her stocking, regarded Mrs.
Hutchins from time to time with a stare of
stolid surprise. I have done but scant justice
to that good lady's narrative. As given by
herself it was embellished with many rhetorical
flourishes and elegant flowers of quotation.
After Mabel had left the room, Mrs. Hutchins
still lingered; trifling with the toilet articles,
arranging the dressing-case that needed no
arrangement, and so forth. Betty watched
her shy and glum behind her stocking.

"Been with Miss Bell long?" asked Mrs.
Hutchins, with airy condescension.

"Ah; a goodish bit."

"Nice young person, ain't she?"

"What?"

"A—a—pleasant young—lady, I say; ain't
she?"

"Yes, she is."

Betty's manner was unpromising; almost
threatening. Mrs. Hutchins changed her
tactics.

"You are not a Londoner, are you?"

"No; I ben't."

"Indeed! Well, no more ain't I. I come
from Hammerham, myself. Ah, deary me!
To look upon what I have seen, when I sees
what I do see! Miss Bell and me was
acquainted in old days."

"Was you?"

"Oh laws yes! And me and others was
acquainted too. Only yesterday I seen a old
friend of Miss Bell's. She didn't go by the
name of Bell when I first knowed her. But
you know what's in a name, don't you?"

"No; what?" demanded the literal Betty.

"Oh, nothing. He's a instance of the ups and
downs of life. I've knowed the time when him
or any of his family might have ate bank-notes
betwixt bread-and-butter. And now a two-pair
back is his sphere of action. Well, there's
no making silk purses out of sow's ears. The
Charlewoods was sprung up out of the kennel.
There's a deal in blood, I think."

Betty's face had relaxed from its rigidity.
There was a sparkle of curiosity in her eye.
But with rustic cunning that was wary of Mrs.
Hutchins's town-bred cuteness, she asked no
point-blank question. "I heerd as they'd
come to London," she said, clicking her
knitting-needles.

"Oh, you know the family, then?"

"By hearsay. I was bora and bred nigh to
Hammerham, and everybody knowed the Charlewoods
there. Gandry and Charlewood they
were called. I used to think, when I was little,
as it was all one name."

Then Mrs. Hutchins leant her folded arms
on the dressing-table, and poured forth a flood
of gossip. She related all she had heard from
the lodging-house servant, and coloured the
tale with a warmth and boldness that ought to
have made her fortune in halfpenny numbers.
Poor Clement! Had there been any truth in
the saying, how his ears must have tingled!
Mrs. Hutchins did not spare him. Her rancour
seemed strangely disproportioned to his offence.
But mean minds are apt to expend more
spite on slights than on injuries. There is
some dignity in being injured; but a trifling
offence, of which the offender is unconscious,
envenoms petty malignity. Betty listened
stolidly. She was surprised and puzzled, but
at the base of her cogitations, was a rooted
distrust of the glib Mrs. Hutchins; the kind
of instinctive suspicion that a dog or a child
might feel.

The meeting with the Hammerham landlady
was not the only surprise destined for Mabel
that evening.

Mr. Alaric Allen prided himself on the strictness
with which he enforced the prohibition
against admitting strangers behind the scenes
of his theatre. But there were nevertheless
a few exceptions made in favour of literary
men, dramatic authors, critics, and so forth.
Occasionally, too, at rare intervals, an idle
good-humoured fine gentleman gained admission.
Such persons would subject themselves to
unheard of snubbings and humiliations, and to
yet more intolerable patronage in order to gain
the privilege of passing an hour behind the
scenes of the Thespian Theatre. It is to be
feared that the end when gained was scarcely
satisfactory. An idle man in a crowd of
workers is never at his ease. And it was a
spectacle to awaken pity in the feeling breast,
to behold a courteous, amiable person, a peer of
the realm it might be, or "curled darling" of
drawing-rooms, with a vacant uneasy smile on
his face, pushed about by surly scowling scene-
shifters, sternly hushed down by the prompter,
driven hither and thither, getting into difficulties
with "set pieces," tripping over black coils of
gas-pipe, scraping his glossy evening coat
against whitewashed walls, and finding everybody
(from the call-boy upwards) too much
occupied to spare any attention for his civil
little speeches! Now and then there might
come a lull between the acts, when the principal
performers sat and chatted in the green-room.
Then the visitor, perhaps, would have a chance
of exchanging half a dozen words with Lady
Teazle or Rosalind; or of complimenting
Coriolanus on his "admirable performance."
The great tragedian meanwhile answering very
civilly, and very much at random, with his eyes