"Roxelane;" the versification of the piece is extremely easy and
graceful, and the preponderance of female characters and convenient
Turkish costume, of turbans and caftans, and loose voluminous trousers,
had appeared to us to combine various advantages for our purpose.
Mademoiselle Descuilles had consented to fill the part of Solyman, the
magnificent and charming Sultan, and I was to be the saucy French
heroine, "dont le nez en l'air semble narguer l'amour," the _semillante_
Roxelane. We had already made good progress in the only difficulty our
simple appreciation of matters dramatic presented to our imagination,
the committing the words of our parts to memory, when Mrs. Rowden, from
whom all our preparations on such occasions were kept sacredly secret,
lighted upon the copy of the play, with all the MS. marks and directions
for our better guidance in the performance; and great were our
consternation, dismay, and disappointment when, with the offending
pamphlet in her hand, she appeared in our midst and indignantly forbade
the representation of any such piece, after the following ejaculatory
fashion, and with an accent difficult to express by written signs: "May,
commang! may_de_mosels, je suis atonnay! May! commang! May_de_mosel
Descuilles, je suis surprise! Kesse ke say! vous per_ma_ttay
may_de_mosels etre lay filles d'ung seraglio! je ne vou pau! je vous
defang! je suis biang atonnay!" And so she departed, with our prompter's
copy, leaving us rather surprised, ourselves, at the unsuspected horror
we had been about to perpetrate, and Mademoiselle Descuilles shrugging
her shoulders and smiling, and not probably quite convinced of the
criminality of a piece of which the heroine, a pretty Frenchwoman,
revolutionizes the Ottoman Empire by inducing her Mohammedan lover to
dismiss his harem and confine his affections to her, whom he is supposed
to marry after the most orthodox fashion possible in those parts.

Our dramatic ardor was considerably damped by this event, and when next
it revived our choice could not be accused of levity. Our aim was
infinitely more ambitious, and our task more arduous. Racine's
"Andromaque" was selected for our next essay in acting, and was, I
suppose, pronounced unobjectionable by the higher authorities. Here,
however, our mainstay and support, Mademoiselle Descuilles, interposed a
very peculiar difficulty. She had very good-naturedly learned the part
of Solyman, in the other piece, for us, an