ear, perhaps
oftener, what do you know of plays? You see no drama, you see but
middle-aged Mr. Brown, churchwarden, payer of taxes, foolishly
pretending to be a brigand; Miss Jones, daughter of old Jones the
Chemist, making believe to be a haughty Princess. How can you, a grown
man, waste money on a seat to witness such tomfoolery! What we saw was
something very different. A young and beautiful girl--true, not a lady
by birth, being merely the daughter of an honest yeoman, but one equal
in all the essentials of womanhood to the noblest in the land--suffered
before our very eyes an amount of misfortune that, had one not seen it
for oneself, one would never have believed Fate could have accumulated
upon the head of any single individual. Beside her woes our own poor
troubles sank into insignificance. We had used to grieve, as my mother
in a whisper reminded my father, if now and again we had not been able
to afford meat for dinner. This poor creature, driven even from her
wretched attic, compelled to wander through the snow without so much as
an umbrella to protect her, had not even a crust to eat; and yet never
lost her faith in Providence. It was a lesson, as my mother remarked
afterwards, that she should never forget. And virtue had been
triumphant, let shallow cynics say what they will. Had we not proved it
with our own senses? The villain--I think his Christian name, if one
can apply the word "Christian" in connection with such a fiend, was
Jasper--had never really loved the heroine. He was incapable of love. My
mother had felt this before he had been on the stage five minutes, and
my father--in spite of protests from callous people behind who appeared
to be utterly indifferent to what was going on under their very
noses--had agreed with her. What he was in love with was her
fortune--the fortune that had been left to her by her uncle in
Australia, but about which nobody but the villain knew anything. Had
she swerved a hair's breadth from the course of almost supernatural
rectitude, had her love for the hero ever weakened, her belief in
him--in spite of damning evidence to the contrary--for a moment wavered,
then wickedness might have triumphed. How at times, knowing all the
facts but helpless to interfere, we trembled, lest deceived by the
cruel lies the villain told her; she should yield to importunity. How
we thrilled when, in language eloquent though rude, she flung his false
love back into his teeth. Yet still we