Her honest, clear character revolted at
vice; but she might harden, grow greedy of power, become imperious and
arrogant. For, remember, I do not say that Mistress Betty had contracted
no contamination. No, no; she had suffered from her selfish fits, her
vain fits, her malicious fits--she had experienced her hours of boldness
and levity--she had made her own way to eminence--she had struggled with
unscrupulous rivals--she had heard much which we would have wished her
not to have heard--she had been a member of that wild, ultra-fine,
coarse, scandalous society: but as we find saints in strange company
sometimes, so the cordial, faithful, generous woman remained with only a
slight coating of affectation and worldliness, thirst for praise, desire
after excitement, habit of command.

"I'll play to this horrid country Justice," whispers Mistress Betty,
quite roused, and looking animated and brilliant already. "I hear by the
gentleness of his voice, when he speaks of the sins and sorrows of
mankind, and when he addresses his little girl, that the fellow has a
heart; but he gave me no quarter, and he shall receive none in return.
I'll conquer him. To come within sight and sound of the boards with his
muddy boots and his snarls, spoiling the enjoyment of the lasses!"

Very true, Mistress Betty, it was neither very wise nor very gallant;
but you ought to remember that the most loyal prejudices are sometimes
as loyally abandoned.

II.--LADY BETTY ON THE STAGE.

The principal theatre of the queen of watering-places in her palmy days
was filling fast, as it had done for the last two nights. Other
attractions lost their power. Ombre, basset, hazard, lansquenet, loo,
spread their cards and counters in vain for crafty or foolhardy fingers.
The master of the ceremonies found his services at a discount; no troops
of maidens, no hosts of squires, answered to his appeal; no double sets
were forming to the inspiring strains of "Nancy Dawson." The worthy,
charming, gifted Lady Betty had come down for three nights to improve,
entertain, and enrapture, and this being her last night the theatre
constituted the only orbit in which the planets would revolve.

The world was here in full-blown variety; sublime, languid peers, needy
placemen, hilarious foxhunters, brave tradesmen, aspiring mechanics,
poor good-for-nothings; sober housewives, whose thoughts were still of
their husbands' shirt-fronts and their hasty-puddings, and who never
dre