y and
kissed him. Now the noise became tremendous. "Silence! silence!" shouted
many old gentlemen behind. "Let the divine creature continue!" But
the young men in the adjacent box were imploring Lucia to extend her
civility to them. She refused, with a humorous, expressive gesture. One
of them hurled a bouquet at her. She spurned it with her foot. Then,
encouraged by the roars of the audience, she picked it up and tossed it
to them. Harriet was always unfortunate. The bouquet struck her full in
the chest, and a little billet-doux fell out of it into her lap.

"Call this classical!" she cried, rising from her seat. "It's not even
respectable! Philip! take me out at once."

"Whose is it?" shouted her brother, holding up the bouquet in one hand
and the billet-doux in the other. "Whose is it?"

The house exploded, and one of the boxes was violently agitated, as if
some one was being hauled to the front. Harriet moved down the gangway,
and compelled Miss Abbott to follow her. Philip, still laughing
and calling "Whose is it?" brought up the rear. He was drunk with
excitement. The heat, the fatigue, and the enjoyment had mounted into
his head.

"To the left!" the people cried. "The innamorato is to the left."

He deserted his ladies and plunged towards the box. A young man was
flung stomach downwards across the balustrade. Philip handed him up the
bouquet and the note. Then his own hands were seized affectionately. It
all seemed quite natural.

"Why have you not written?" cried the young man. "Why do you take me by
surprise?"

"Oh, I've written," said Philip hilariously. "I left a note this
afternoon."

"Silence! silence!" cried the audience, who were beginning to have
enough. "Let the divine creature continue." Miss Abbott and Harriet had
disappeared.

"No! no!" cried the young man. "You don't escape me now." For Philip was
trying feebly to disengage his hands. Amiable youths bent out of the box
and invited him to enter it.

"Gino's friends are ours--"

"Friends?" cried Gino. "A relative! A brother! Fra Filippo, who has come
all the way from England and never written."

"I left a message."

The audience began to hiss.

"Come in to us."

"Thank you--ladies--there is not time--"

The next moment he was swinging by his arms. The moment after he shot
over the balustrade into the box. Then the conductor, seeing that the
incident was over, raised his baton. The house was hushed, and Lucia di
Lammermoor resume