ng on behind the scenes, and slipping out
of the hall, I traversed the great gold and white drawing-room, prepared
for dancing, and peeped into the morning-room, which, with the adjoining
library, had been given up to the actors. They were all assembled in the
morning-room, however, waiting for one of the elder ladies who had not
come down. The prompter was getting fidgety, and walking about. The two
scene-shifters, pale, weary-looking men, who had come down with the
scenery, were sitting in the wings, perfectly apathetic amid the general
excitement. Charles and several other actors were standing round a
footman who was opening champagne bottles at a surprising rate. I saw
Charles take a glass to Evelyn, who was shivering with a sharp attack of
stage-fever in an arm-chair, looking over her part. She smiled
gratefully, but as she did so her eyes wandered to the other side of the
room, where Ralph, on his knees before Aurelia, was fastening a diamond
star in her dress. Diamonds, rubies, and emeralds flashed in her hair,
and on her white neck and arms. Ralph was fixing the last ornament onto
her shoulder with wire off a champagne bottle, there being no clasp to
hold it in its place. I saw Evelyn turn away again, and Charles, who was
watching her, suddenly went off to the fire, and began to complain of
the cold, and of the thinness of his silk stockings.

The elder lady--"the heavy mother," as Charles irreverently called
her--now arrived; the orchestra, which was giving a final flourish, was
begged in a hoarse whisper to keep going a few minutes longer; eyes were
applied to the hole in the curtain, and then, every one being assembled,
it was felt by all that the awful moment had come at last. A more
miserable-looking set of people I never saw. I always imagined that the
actors behind the scenes were as gay off the stage as on it; but I found
to my astonishment that they were all suffering more or less from severe
mental depression. Ralph and Aurelia were now sitting ruefully together
on an ottoman beside the painting table, littered with its various
rouges and creams and stage appliances. Even Charles, who had
established Evelyn on a chair in the wings at the side she had to come
on from, and was now drinking champagne with due regard to his
paint--even Charles owned to being nervous.

"I wish to goodness Mrs. Wright would begin!" he said. "Ah, there she
goes!"--as she ascended the stage steps. "There goes the bell. We are