s opened by the heroine, still injured, still
inconsolable, and still clad in the polka jacket and white slip. We
thought her a very nice little woman, with a melodious,
genteel-comedy-voice, trim ankles, and a habit of catching her breath in
the most pathetic manner, at least a dozen times in the course of one
soliloquy. While she was still assuring us that she felt the most
forlorn creature on the face of the earth, she was suddenly interrupted
by the entrance of no less a person than the Curate himself. We had seen
nothing of the reverend gentleman throughout the second act; but
"h'Adam" had casually informed us that his time had been passed at his
parsonage, "sittun with his 'ed between his knees, sobbun!" Having now
wearied of this gymnastic method of indulging in parental grief, he had
set forth to seek his lost daughter, and had accidentally stopped at the
very inn where she had taken refuge. Nothing could be more piteous than
his present appearance; he was infinitely more tipsy, infinitely more
dignified, and infinitely more parenthetical in his mode of expressing
himself, than when we last beheld him. A streak of burnt cork running
down each side of his venerable nose, showed us how deeply grief had
increased the wrinkles of age; and our pity for him reached its climax
when he cast his clerical hat on the floor, sank drowsily into a chair,
and began to pray in these words: "Oh heabben! hear a solemn and a solid
prayer--hear a solemn heart who wants to embrace his darling Fanny!"

All this time, the lost daughter was hiding behind the forlorn father's
chair; an awful and convenient darkness being thrown on the stage by the
introduction of a plank between the actors and the tallow candles. In
this striking situation, Miss Fanny told her sad story, and pleaded her
own cause as a stranger, under disguise of the darkness. Useless--quite
useless! The reverend gentleman, having never turned round to see who it
was that was speaking to him, and having therefore no idea that it was
his own daughter, received in dignified silence the advances of a young
person unknown to him. What course was now left to the unhappy Fanny?
The old course--a rush off the stage, and a swoon in the street. As soon
as her back was turned, the Parson, forgetting to take away his hat
with him, staggered out at the opposite side to continue his journey. He
uttered as he went the following moral observation:--"No soul so lost to
Nature, but must b