who rebukes her New York neighbors of the Fifth Avenue (she
has a princely mansion there), with the fact that in Charleston she is,
whenever she visits it, the all-absorbing topic with fashionable
society. For four successive winters Madame Montford has honored the
elite of Charleston with her presence. The advent of her coming, too,
has been duly heralded in the morning papers--to the infinite delight of
the St. Cecilia Society, which never fails to distinguish her arrival
with a ball. And this ball is sure to be preceded with no end of
delicately-perfumed cards, and other missives, as full of compliments as
it is capable of cramming them. There is, notwithstanding all these
ovations in honor of her coming, a mystery hanging over her periodical
visits, for the sharp-eyed persist that they have seen her disguised,
and in suspicious places, making singular inquiries about a woman of the
name of Mag Munday. And these suspicions have given rise to whisperings,
and these whisperings have crept into the ears of several very old and
highly-respectable "first families," which said families have suddenly
dropped her acquaintance. But what is more noticeable in the features of
Madame Montford, is the striking similarity between them and Anna
Bonard's. Her most fervent admirers have noticed it; while strangers
have not failed to discover it, and to comment upon it. And the girl who
sits in the box with Mr. Snivel, so cautiously fortifying herself with
the curtain, is none other than Anna. Mr. Snivel has brought her here as
an atonement for past injuries.

Just as the curtain is about to rise, Mr. McArthur, true to his word,
may be seen toddling to the stage door, his treasure carefully tied up
in a handkerchief. He will deliver it to no one but the manager, and in
spite of his other duties that functionary is compelled to receive it in
person. This done, the old man, to the merriment of certain wags who
delight to speculate on his childlike credulity, takes a seat in the
parquette, wipes clean his venerable spectacles, and placing them
methodically over his eyes, forms a unique picture in the foreground of
the audience. McArthur, with the aid of his glasses, can recognize
objects at a distance; and as the Hamlet of the night is decidedly
Teutonic in his appearance and pronunciation, he has no great relish for
the Star, nor a hand of applause to bestow on his genius. Hamlet, he is
sure, never articulated with a coarse brogue. So t