ughed
at my ignorance, and then she told me, when the play began, the green
curtain would draw up to the sound of soft music, and I should hear a
lady dressed in black say,

"Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast:"

and those were the very first words the actress, whose name was
Almeria, spoke. When the curtain began to draw up, and I saw the
bottom of her black petticoat, and heard the soft music, what an
agitation I was in! But before that we had long to wait. Frederica
told me we should wait till all the dress boxes were full, and then
the lights would pop up under the orchestra; the second music would
play, and then the play would begin.

This play was the Mourning Bride. It was a very moving tragedy; and
after that when the curtain dropt, and I thought it was all over, I
saw the most diverting pantomime that ever was seen. I made a strange
blunder the next day, for I told papa that Almeria was married to
Harlequin at last; but I assure you I meant to say Columbine, for I
knew very well that Almeria was married to Alphonso; for she said she
was in the first scene. She thought he was dead, but she found him
again, just as I did my papa and mamma, when she least expected it.

VII

MARIA HOWE

(_By Charles Lamb_)

I was brought up in the country. From my infancy I was always a
weak and tender-spirited girl, subject to fears and depressions.
My parents, and particularly my mother, were of a very different
disposition. They were what is usually called gay: they loved
pleasure, and parties, and visiting; but as they found the turn of my
mind to be quite opposite, they gave themselves little trouble about
me, but upon such occasions generally left me to my choice, which was
much oftener to stay at home, and indulge myself in my solitude, than
to join in their rambling visits. I was always fond of being alone,
yet always in a manner afraid. There was a book-closet which led into
my mother's dressing-room. Here I was eternally fond of being shut
up by myself, to take down whatever volumes I pleased, and pore upon
them, no matter whether they were fit for my years or no, or whether I
understood them. Here, when the weather would not permit my going into
the dark walk, _my walk_, as it was called, in the garden; here when
my parents have been from home, I have stayed for hours together,
till the loneliness which pleased me so at first, has at length
become quite frightful, and I have rushed out of the