ay, just to show how much
she is at home in such a place, and probably to attract a little more
attention.

Query? Why do the handsomest women at an opera _always_ talk and laugh
the loudest?

That portion of the audience comprised in the gentler sex is here in all
the attraction of natural loveliness and adventitious ornament, putting
to flight a notion once prevalent, that beauty when unadorned is then
adorned the most.

The noise of conversation which now lulls, now swells out in gentle
crescendos, is chiefly the production of this taciturn part of the
audience. All at once the gas is let on in a gush of light, the buzz of
voices, which up to this time has been carried on in a subdued tone,
bursts out into full force, with a suddenness that seems to render it
probable that the conversation has been issuing all the while from the
gas jets. The augmented light brings down another volley from the foci
of a thousand _lorgnettes_. At this moment the musicians begin to enter
the orchestra which has been void of occupants all the evening, with the
exception of one meaningless old fellow, who has been attempting to
restore order among the stands, seats, and books, but whose laudable
efforts have ended in what every single gentleman at lodgings knows all
endeavours to "set things to rights," are sure to effect--a state of
affairs in which confusion is considerably worse confounded. But after
all a music-stand must be adjusted by the performer himself; no one can
put the hat of another on the head of the latter so as to be comfortable
to him. The latter must pose it for himself. This law applies with
peculiar force to music-stands.

The violinists proceed to tighten or slacken the hair of their bows, to
throw back the coat collar, or stuff a white handkerchief under it, in
order to adjust the violin to the peculiar crook of each neck, with as
much apparent anxiety as if they had not been doing the same thing for
the last thirty years, and some of their heads had not become bald over
the sound-post. In the meantime, the other members of this well-bearded
corps are streaming in with their instruments under the arm, and are
placing their music books and lamps at the proper elevation on the
stands, all the while talking, nodding, and smiling as if rehearsing
half the day, and playing half the night, were a mighty good joke.

And then ascend to the highest parts of the house--to the regions of the
operatic "paradise," those m