re in a
twinkling, and the wife modestly, but as a matter of course, courtesied
low, with an air of welcome to all her guests, and then glided into the
seat her servants obsequiously placed before her.

The whole thing did not take half a minute!

CHAPTER XI.

MR. VANE, besides being a rich, was a magnificent man; when his features
were in repose their beauty had a wise and stately character. Soaper and
Snarl had admired and bitterly envied him. At the present moment no one
of his guests envied him--they began to realize his position. And he, a
huge wheel of shame and remorse, began to turn and whir before his
eyes. He sat between two European beauties, and, pale and red by turns,
shunned the eyes of both, and looked down at his plate in a cold sweat
of humiliation, mortification and shame.

The iron passed through Mrs. Woffington's soul. So! this was a villain,
too, the greatest villain of all--a hypocrite! She turned very faint,
but she was under an enemy's eye, and under a rival's; the thought
drove the blood back from her heart, and with a mighty effort she was
Woffington again. Hitherto her liaison with Mr. Vane had called up the
better part of her nature, and perhaps our reader has been taking her
for a good woman; but now all her dregs were stirred to the surface. The
mortified actress gulled by a novice, the wronged and insulted woman,
had but two thoughts; to defeat her rival--to be revenged on her false
lover. More than one sharp spasm passed over her features before she
could master them, and then she became smiles above, wormwood and
red-hot steel below--all in less than half a minute.

As for the others, looks of keen intelligence passed between them, and
they watched with burning interest for the _denouement._ That interest
was stronger than their sense of the comicality of all this (for the
humorous view of what passes before our eyes comes upon cool reflection,
not often at the time).

Sir Charles, indeed, who had foreseen some of this, wore a demure look,
belied by his glittering eye. He offered Cibber snuff, and the two
satirical animals grinned over the snuff-box, like a malicious old ape
and a mischievous young monkey.

The newcomer was charming; she was above the middle height, of a
full, though graceful figure, her abundant, glossy, bright brown hair
glittered here and there like gold in the light; she had a snowy brow,
eyes of the profoundest blue, a cheek like a peach, and a face beam