act I might, if my parents had thought it prudent
to let me do so, have passed in all the gayety of the fashionable world
and the great London season. So much cordiality, sympathy, interest, and
apparent genuine good-will seemed to accompany all these flattering
demonstrations, that it was impossible for me not to be touched and
gratified,--perhaps, too, unduly elated. If I was spoiled and my head
turned, I can only say I think it would have needed a strong head not to
be so; but God knows how pitiful a preparation all this tinsel, sudden
success, and popularity formed for the duties and trials of my
after-life.

CHAPTER XIII.

Among the persons whom I used to see behind the scenes were two who, for
different reasons, attracted my attention: one was the Earl of W----,
and the other the Rev. A.F. C----. I was presented to Lord and Lady
W---- in society, and visited them more than once at their place near
Manchester. But before I had made Lord W----'s acquaintance, he was an
object of wondering admiration to me, not altogether unmixed with a
slight sense of the ridiculous, only because it passed my comprehension
how any real, live man could be so exactly like the description of a
particular kind of man, in a particular kind of book. There was no fault
to find with the elegance of his appearance and his remarkable good
looks; he certainly was the beau ideal of a dandy,--with his slender,
perfectly dressed figure, his pale complexion, regular features, fine
eyes, and dark, glossy waves of hair, and the general aristocratic
distinction of his whole person,--and was so like the Earl of So-and-So,
in the fashionable novel of the day, that I always longed to ask him
what he did at the end of the "third volume," and "whether he or Sir
Reginald married Lady Geraldine." But why this exquisite _par
excellence_ should always have struck me as slightly absurd, I cannot
imagine. The Rev. A.F. C---- was the natural son of William IV. and Mrs.
Jordan, and vicar of Maple Durham; when first I came out, this young
gentleman attended every one of my performances, first in one of the
stage boxes and afterward in a still nearer position to the stage, one
of the orchestra reserved seats. Thence, one night, he disappeared, and,
to my surprise, I saw him standing at one of the side scenes during the
whole play. My mother remarking at supper his non-attendance in his
usual place, my father said that he had come to him at the beginning o