nd on his stool, and looked hard at Miss Garth. "I beg your pardon,
ma'am," he said. "Miss Marrable told me, before we began, that this was
the young lady's first attempt. It can't be, surely!"

"It is," replied Miss Garth, reflecting the manager's look of amazement
on her own face. Was it possible that Magdalen's unintelligible industry
in the study of her part really sprang from a serious interest in her
occupation--an interest which implied a natural fitness for it.

The rehearsal went on. The stout lady with the wig (and the excellent
heart) personated the sentimental Julia from an inveterately tragic
point of view, and used her handkerchief distractedly in the first
scene. The spinster relative felt Mrs. Malaprop's mistakes in language
so seriously, and took such extraordinary pains with her blunders, that
they sounded more like exercises in elocution than anything else. The
unhappy lad who led the forlorn hope of the company, in the person
of "Sir Anthony Absolute," expressed the age and irascibility of his
character by tottering incessantly at the knees, and thumping the
stage perpetually with his stick. Slowly and clumsily, with constant
interruptions and interminable mistakes, the first act dragged on, until
Lucy appeared again to end it in soliloquy, with the confession of her
assumed simplicity and the praise of her own cunning.

Here the stage artifice of the situation presented difficulties which
Magdalen had not encountered in the first scene--and here, her total
want of experience led her into more than one palpable mistake. The
stage-manager, with an eagerness which he had not shown in the case of
any other member of the company, interfered immediately, and set her
right. At one point she was to pause, and take a turn on the stage--she
did it. At another, she was to stop, toss her head, and look pertly at
the audience--she did it. When she took out the paper to read the
list of the presents she had received, could she give it a tap with
her finger (Yes)? And lead off with a little laugh (Yes--after twice
trying)? Could she read the different items with a sly look at the end
of each sentence, straight at the pit (Yes, straight at the pit, and as
sly as you please)? The manager's cheerful face beamed with approval.
He tucked the play under his arm, and clapped his hands gayly; the
gentlemen, clustered together behind the scenes, followed his example;
the ladies looked at each other with dawning doubts whe