Emilia dumb when she gazed on
the glittering lights. After an inspection of the house, Mr. Pole kindly
remarked: "You must marry and get out of this. This'd never do. All very
well in the boxes: but on the stage--oh, no! I shouldn't like you to
be there. If my girls don't approve of the doctor, they shall look out
somebody for you. I shouldn't like you to be painted, and rigged out;
and have to squall in this sort of place. Stage won't do for you. No,
no!"

Emilia replied that she had given up the stage; and looked mournfully at
the drop-scene, as at a lost kingdom, scarcely repressing her tears.

The orchestra tuned and played a light overture. She followed up the
windings of the drop-scene valley, meeting her lover somewhere beneath
the castle-ruin, where the river narrowed and the trees intertwined. On
from dream to dream the music carried her, and dull fell the first words
of the farce. Mr. Pole said, "Now, then!" and began to chuckle. As
the farce proceeded, he grew more serious, repeating to Emilia, quite
anxiously: "I wonder whether that boy Braintop's enjoying it." Emilia
glanced among the sea of heads, and finally eliminated the head
of Braintop, who was respectfully devoting his gaze to the box she
occupied. When Mr. Pole had been assisted to discover him likewise, his
attention alternated between Braintop and the stage, and he expressed
annoyance from time to time at the extreme composure of Braintop's
countenance. "Why don't the fellow laugh? Does he think he's listening
to a sermon?" Poor Braintop, on his part, sat in mortal fear lest his
admiration of Emilia was perceived. Divided? between this alarming
suspicion, and a doubt that the hair on his forehead was not properly
regulated, he became uneasy and fitful in his deportment. His
imagination plagued him with a sense of guilt, which his master's
watchfulness of him increased. He took an opportunity to furtively
to eye himself in a pocket-mirror, and was subsequently haunted by an
additional dread that Emilia might have discovered the instrument; and
set him down as a vain foolish dog. When he saw her laugh he was sure
of it. Instead of responding to Mr. Pole's encouragement, he assumed a
taciturn aspect worthy of a youthful anchorite, and continued to be the
spectator of a scene to which his soul was dead.

"I believe that fellow's thinking of nothing but his supper," said Mr.
Pole.

"I dare say he dined early in the day," returned Emilia, rememberi