d:

"Do you know her? Is her husband living?"

"I shall call by appointment to-morrow, but this is the first time I
have seen her. Of her history I know nothing, but rumour pronounces
her a widow."

"Which generally means that these pretty actresses have drunken,
worthless husbands, paid comfortable salaries to shut their eyes and
keep out of the way," added Mrs. Laurance, lengthening the range of
her opera glass, and levelling it at a group where the shimmer of
jewels attracted her attention.

How the words grated on her husband's ear, grown strangely sensitive
within an hour?

Carelessly glancing over the sea of faces beneath and around him, the
minister continued:

"English critics contend that Madame Orme's 'Amy Robsart' is so far
from being Scott's ideal creation, that he would fail to recognize it
were he alive; still where she alters the text, and intensifies the
type, they admit that the dramatic effect is heightened. She appears
to have concentrated all her talent upon the passionate impersonation
of one peculiar phrase of feminine suffering and endurance--that of
the outraged and neglected wife; and her favourite _roles_ are
'Katherine' from Henry VIII., 'Hermione,' and 'Medea,' though she is
said to excel in 'Deborah.' My brother who saw her last night as
'Medea' pronounced her fully equal to Rachel, and said that in that
scene where she attempted to remove her children from the side of the
new wife, the despairing fury of her eyes literally raised the few
thin hairs that still faithfully cling to the top of his head.
Ah--the parting with Leicester--how marvellously beautiful is she!"

Leaning against a dressing-table loaded with toilet trifles and
_bijouterie_, Amy stood, arrayed in the costume which displayed to
greatest advantage the perfect symmetry of form and the dazzling
purity of her complexion.

The cymar of white silk bordered with swan's-down exposed the
gleaming dimpled shoulders, and from beneath the pretty lace coif the
unbound glory of her long hair swept around her like a cataract of
gold, touching the hem of her silken gown, where, to complete the
witchery, one slippered foot was visible. When her husband entered to
bid her adieu, and the final petition for public acknowledgment was
once more sternly denied, the long-pent agony in the woman's heart
burst all barriers, overflowed every dictate of wounded pride, and
with an utter _abandon_ of genuine poignant grief, she gave way to a