eir memories as soon as they stepped on the stage;
left half their dialogue unspoken; came to a dead pause; were audibly
entreated by the invisible manager to "come off"; and went off
accordingly, in every respect sadder and wiser men than when they
went on. The next scene disclosed Miss Marrable as "Lydia Languish,"
gracefully seated, very pretty, beautifully dressed, accurately mistress
of the smallest words in her part; possessed, in short, of every
personal resource--except her voice. The ladies admired, the gentlemen
applauded. Nobody heard anything but the words "Speak up, miss,"
whispered by the same voice which had already entreated "Fag" and "the
Coachman" to "come off." A responsive titter rose among the younger
spectators; checked immediately by magnanimous applause. The temperature
of the audience was rising to Blood Heat--but the national sense of fair
play was not boiled out of them yet.

In the midst of the demonstration, Magdalen quietly made her first
entrance, as "Julia." She was dressed very plainly in dark colors, and
wore her own hair; all stage adjuncts and alterations (excepting the
slightest possible touch of rouge on her cheeks) having been kept in
reserve to disguise her the more effectually in her second part. The
grace and simplicity of her costume, the steady self-possession with
which she looked out over the eager rows of faces before her, raised
a low hum of approval and expectation. She spoke--after suppressing a
momentary tremor--with a quiet distinctness of utterance which reached
all ears, and which at once confirmed the favorable impression that her
appearance had produced. The one member of the audience who looked at
her and listened to her coldly, was her elder sister. Before the actress
of the evening had been five minutes on the stage, Norah detected,
to her own indescribable astonishment, that Magdalen had audaciously
individualized the feeble amiability of "Julia's" character, by seizing
no less a person than herself as the model to act it by. She saw all
her own little formal peculiarities of manner and movement unblushingly
reproduced--and even the very tone of her voice so accurately mimicked
from time to time, that the accents startled her as if she was
speaking herself, with an echo on the stage. The effect of this
cool appropriation of Norah's identity to theatrical purposes on the
audience--who only saw results--asserted itself in a storm of applause
on Magdalen's exit. S