before the
curtain drew up; and I'm sorry to say, he at last took half a dislike
to Sunday--Sunday "which knits up the raveled sleave of care," Sunday
"tired nature's sweet restorer," because on Sunday there was no Peg
Woffington. At first he regarded her as a being of another sphere, an
incarnation of poetry and art; but by degrees his secret aspirations
became bolder. She was a woman; there were men who knew her; some of
them inferior to him in position, and, he flattered himself, in mind.
He had even heard a tale against her character. To him her face was its
confutation, and he knew how loose-tongued is calumny; but still--!

At last, one day he sent her a letter, unsigned. This letter expressed
his admiration of her talent in warm but respectful terms; the writer
told her it had become necessary to his heart to return her in some way
his thanks for the land of enchantment to which she had introduced him.
Soon after this, choice flowers found their way to her dressing-room
every night, and now and then verses and precious stones mingled with
her roses and eglantine. And oh, how he watched the great actress's
eye all the night; how he tried to discover whether she looked oftener
toward his box than the corresponding box on the other side of the
house. Did she notice him, or did she not? What a point gained, if she
was conscious of his nightly attendance. She would feel he was a friend,
not a mere auditor. He was jealous of the pit, on whom Mrs. Woffington
lavished her smiles without measure.

At last, one day he sent her a wreath of flowers, and implored her, if
any word he had said to her had pleased or interested her, to wear this
wreath that night. After he had done this he trembled; he had courted a
decision, when, perhaps, his safety lay in patience and time. She
made her _entree;_ he turned cold as she glided into sight from the
prompter's side; he raised his eyes slowly and fearfully from her feet
to her head; her head was bare, wreathed only by its own rich glossy
honors. "Fool!" thought he, "to think she would hang frivolities upon
that glorious head for me." Yet his disappointment told him he had
really hoped it; he would not have sat out the play but for a leaden
incapacity of motion that seized him.

The curtain drew up for the fifth act, and!--could he believe his
eyes?--Mrs. Woffington stood upon the stage with his wreath upon her
graceful head. She took away his breath. She spoke the epilogue, and, a