signal to begin in earnest, set the orchestra playing a
variety of popular airs, with involuntary variations.

If Nicholas had been astonished at the alteration for the better which
the gentlemen displayed, the transformation of the ladies was still more
extraordinary. When, from a snug corner of the manager's box, he beheld
Miss Snevellicci in all the glories of white muslin with a golden hem,
and Mrs Crummles in all the dignity of the outlaw's wife, and Miss
Bravassa in all the sweetness of Miss Snevellicci's confidential friend,
and Miss Belvawney in the white silks of a page doing duty everywhere
and swearing to live and die in the service of everybody, he could
scarcely contain his admiration, which testified itself in great
applause, and the closest possible attention to the business of the
scene. The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age,
people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account,
as nobody's previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of
what would ever come of it. An outlaw had been very successful in doing
something somewhere, and came home, in triumph, to the sound of shouts
and fiddles, to greet his wife--a lady of masculine mind, who talked
a good deal about her father's bones, which it seemed were unburied,
though whether from a peculiar taste on the part of the old gentleman
himself, or the reprehensible neglect of his relations, did not appear.
This outlaw's wife was, somehow or other, mixed up with a patriarch,
living in a castle a long way off, and this patriarch was the father
of several of the characters, but he didn't exactly know which, and was
uncertain whether he had brought up the right ones in his castle, or the
wrong ones; he rather inclined to the latter opinion, and, being uneasy,
relieved his mind with a banquet, during which solemnity somebody in
a cloak said 'Beware!' which somebody was known by nobody (except the
audience) to be the outlaw himself, who had come there, for reasons
unexplained, but possibly with an eye to the spoons. There was an
agreeable little surprise in the way of certain love passages between
the desponding captive and Miss Snevellicci, and the comic fighting-man
and Miss Bravassa; besides which, Mr Lenville had several very tragic
scenes in the dark, while on throat-cutting expeditions, which were
all baffled by the skill and bravery of the comic fighting-man (who
overheard whatever was said all throug