re all before the prompter's box. The
old actress presented herself to a casual glance as a red-faced, raddled
woman in a wig, with beady eyes, a hooked nose, and pretty hands; but
Nick Dormer, who had a sense for the over-scored human surface, soon
observed that these comparatively gross marks included a great deal of
delicate detail--an eyebrow, a nostril, a flitting of expressions, as if
a multitude of little facial wires were pulled from within. This
accomplished artist had in particular a mouth which was visibly a rare
instrument, a pair of lips whose curves and fine corners spoke of a
lifetime of "points" unerringly made and verses exquisitely spoken,
helping to explain the purity of the sound that issued from them. Her
whole countenance had the look of long service--of a thing infinitely
worn and used, drawn and stretched to excess, with its elasticity
overdone and its springs relaxed, yet religiously preserved and kept in
repair, even as some valuable old timepiece which might have quivered
and rumbled but could be trusted to strike the hour. At the first words
she spoke Gabriel Nash exclaimed endearingly: _"Ah la voix de
Celimene!"_ Celimene, who wore a big red flower on the summit of her
dense wig, had a very grand air, a toss of the head, and sundry little
majesties of manner; in addition to which she was strange, almost
grotesque, and to some people would have been even terrifying, capable
of reappearing, with her hard eyes, as a queer vision of the darkness.
She excused herself for having made the company wait, and mouthed and
mimicked in the drollest way, with intonations as fine as a flute, the
performance and the pretensions of the _belles dames_ to whom she had
just been endeavouring to communicate a few of the rudiments. _"Mais
celles-la, c'est une plaisanterie,"_ she went on to Mrs. Rooth; "whereas
you and your daughter, _chere madame_--I'm sure you are quite another
matter."

The girl had got rid of her tears, and was gazing at her, and Mrs. Rooth
leaned forward and said portentously: "She knows four languages."

Madame Carre gave one of her histrionic stares, throwing back her head.
"That's three too many. The thing's to do something proper with one."

"We're very much in earnest," continued Mrs. Rooth, who spoke excellent
French.

"I'm glad to hear it--_il n'y a que ca. La tete est bien_--the head's
very good," she said as she looked at the girl. "But let us see, my dear
child, what you've got