d she half rose from her seat,
but Mr. Chesley held her back, and dropped the curtain.

"Oh, uncle! How handsome, how refined, how noble-looking! Poor
darling mother! how could she help giving him her heart? In all my
dreams and fancies, I never even hoped to find him such a man! My
father, my father!"

She trembled so violently that Mr. Chesley said hastily:

"Compose yourself, or I shall be forced to take you home, and your
mother will be displeased; for she particularly desired that I would
watch the effect of the play on those two men opposite."

She leaned back, shut her eyes, and bravely endeavoured to conquer
her agitation, and luckily at this moment the stage-curtain rose.

By the aid of photographs procured in America, and by dint of
personal supervision and suggestions, Mrs. Orme had successfully
arranged the exact reproduction of certain localities: the
college--the campus--the humble cottage of old Mrs. Chesley with its
peculiar porch, whose column caps were carved to represent dogs'
heads--the interior of a hospital, of an orphan asylum, and of the
library at the parsonage.

Leaning far back in his chair, a prey to gloomy and indescribably
bitter reflections, as he accustomed himself to the contemplation of
the fact that the beautiful woman in whom his own fickle wayward
heart had become earnestly interested, would sell herself to the
grey-bearded man beside him, Cuthbert gnawed his silky moustache;
while his father watched with feverish impatience for the opening of
the play, and the sight of his enchantress.

The curtain rose upon a group sitting on the sward before the cottage
door. Minnie Merle in the costume of a very young girl, with her
golden hair all hidden under a thick wig of dark curling locks, that
straggled in childish disorder around her neck and shoulders, while
her sun-bonnet, the veritable green and white gingham of other days,
lay at her feet. Beside her a tall youth, who represented Peleg
Peterson, in the garb of a carpenter, with a tool-box on the ground,
and in his hands a wooden doll, which he was carving for the child.

In the door of the cottage sat the grandmother knitting and nodding,
with white hair shining under her snowy cap-border; and while the
carpenter carved and whistled an old-fashioned ditty, "Meet me by
moonlight alone," the girl in a quavering voice attempted to
accompany him.

Minnie sat with her countenance turned fully to the audience, and
when Cuthbert