she stands behind the screen in Joseph Surface's rooms,
Sir Peter's wife is wishing that the comedy were ended and she were
comfortably ensconced in her cosy little lodgings round the corner.
She pictures that crackling wood fire, and her old terrier basking
in the gentle heat, and the tea-urn hissing near by (or is it a cold
bottle of beer in the portable refrigerator?) and in the background
sweet good Mr. Smith, who does nothing but spend his lady's salary.
In that temple of domesticity there are no thoughts of rouge, or
paint-pots, or of Richard Brinsley Sheridan--it is merely home. Dost
thou always hurry back to so attractive a one, thou patronising
theatre-goer?

Our Nance had a home to which she was glad enough to hurry back, like
the aforesaid Miss Smith, after the play was over at Drury Lane. There
was no husband there to await her, but a very devoted knight in the
person of Mr. Arthur Maynwaring, who, though he gave not his name nor
the ceremony of bell, book, and candle to the union, played the part
of spouse to the fair charmer. The town looked with good-natured
tolerance on the moral code, or the want thereof, of the frail one,
just as other towns, in later days, have looked with equal benevolence
upon the peccadillos of some petted favourite. The times were not of
the straightlaced order and no one expected from an actress wonders
of chastity or conventionality. Are we ourselves exacting where the
Thespian is concerned?

[Illustration: ANNE OLDFIELD

By JONATHAN RICHARDSON]

Fashion'd alike by Nature and by Art
To please, engage, and interest ev'ry heart.
In public life, by all who saw, approv'd;
In private life, by all who knew her, lov'd.

"Even her amours," says Chetwood in treating of Mistress Oldfield,
"seemed to lose that glare which appears round the persons of the
failing fair; neither was it ever known that she troubled the repose
of any lady's lawful claim; and was far more constant than millions in
the conjugal noose." Being thus acquitted of predatory designs
upon the peace of English wives, and having the further virtue of
constancy, a host of Londoners, men and women, high and low alike,
gazed with charitable eyes upon Nance's private life. And she, dear
girl, sinned on joyously.

Mr. Maynwaring, who helped Oldfield to break the spirit of one
commandment, was a brilliant figure in the reign of Queen Anne,
albeit, like other brilliant figures of that period, he has passed
into