d near the
front with another lady; while somewhat further back, appeared the form
of an elderly gentleman with a star upon the left breast. Towards that
box, as we have before said, many eyes were turned; and from the space*
below, as well as from other parts of the house, the beaux of the
day were gazing in evident expectation of a bow, or a smile, or a mark
of recognition. Nevertheless, in neither of the ladies which that box
contained was there, as far as Wilton could see, any of those little
arts but too often used for the purpose of attracting attention, and
which, to say the truth, were displayed in a remarkable manner by the
lady in the other box we have mentioned. There was no fair hand
stretched out over the cushions; no fringed glove cast negligently down;
no fan waved gracefully to give emphasis to that was said; but, on the
contrary, the whole figure of the lady in front remained tranquil and
calm, with much grace and beauty in the attitude, but none even of that
flutter of consciousness which often betrays the secrets of vanity. The
expression of the face, indeed, Wilton could not see, for the head was
turned towards the stage; and though the lady looked round more than
once during the interval between the acts to speak to those behind her
in the box, the effect was only to turn her face still farther from his
gaze.
[*Footnote: I have not said "the pit," because the intruders of fashion
had not then been driven from the STAGE itself, especially between the
acts.]
At length, the play went on, and at the end of the second act a
slight movement enabled Lord Sherbrooke and Wilton to advance further
towards the stage, so that the latter was now nearly opposite to the
box in which one of the beauties of the day was seated. He
immediately turned in that direction, as did Lord Sherbrooke at the
same moment; and Wilton, with a feeling of pain that can scarcely be
described, beheld in the fair girl who seemed to be the unwilling
object of so much admiration, no other than the young lady whom he
had aided in rescuing when attacked, as we have before described, by
the gentry who in those days frequented so commonly the King's
Highway.
Though now dressed with splendour, as became her rank and station,
there was in her whole countenance the same simple unaffected look of
tranquil modesty which Wilton had remarked there before, and in which
he had fancied he read the story of a noble mind and a fine heart,
rather undervaluing than otherwise the external