gatawny soup was served to the sinking dancers; and it was while a rush was being made at this opportune refreshment that Cecil again sought to engage May on the subject which was nearest his heart. The pair were together in their old place near the window, through which the air came fresher than before, while the light of the stars was more pale in the nowdetermined morning.

'May,' said the Hussar, 'I love you, and I know that you love me. Will you keep our loves secret? One day I will tell you all.'

'I dare not,' replied May, evading response to the most important part of his avowal; 'you should tell me, if you love me, why you will not see my father.'

Then the people came crowding in again, and May was claimed by the Cartwrights, who were drawn up in order to dismiss their guests.

I hope you have enjoyed yourself, was Mrs. Cartwright's usual greeting to the guests who came up and made their adieux; 'it is not our fault if you have not, for Cartwright ordered everything of the best.' And Cartwright, who stood by, and seemed thoroughly weary of his friends, corroborated this assertion with a significant nod.

Lucy did not seem to think this exhibition quite dignified, and drew May towards the door, where the carriage was waiting. Captain Halidame was waiting too on the steps, and it was just after the mayor and mayoress, and Lucy and May, had entered the carriage that May made the discovery that she had lost her necklace.

CHAPTER VII.

BROMPTON ROW-A SKIRMISH-AND THE CAPTURE OF A SECOND FLOOR.

The reader who has not made the acquaintance of Brompton Row, Brompton, London, need not take the omission much to heart, for the association is not likely to gain him any great advantage, either practical or honorary; and the place in question may be resembled at best to a shabby person in the midst of brilliant society. For below BrompVOL. XVII.-NO. XCVII.

ton Row and above Brompton Row are favourite haunts of the prosperous and wealthy. The new squares and houses, to be sure, are suggestive of inhabitants with new incomes; but incomes must be new at one time or another, like families and titles, and it would be illiberal to make any objection to them on that score. The residents in the more distinguished quarters certainly look down upon Brompton Row, and consider that all those parts of the main thoroughfare where the houses seem shrinking away from the road, and the shops alone take up a bold position and advance their goods to the front of the pavement, ought to be improved off the face of fashionable creation. That this great work will be accomplished one of these days we may be tolerably certain; but ugly old houses in the midst of handsome new neighbourhoods have an importance quite apart from their intrinsic claims, and, even when leases do not interfere, are as difficult to get out of the way as an organgrinder who knows the value of peace and quietness, and there is no remedy in the case of the houses by an appeal to the police.

It was about a fortnight after the ball at Shuttleton, and towards the close, therefore, of the London season, that a lady and gentleman might have been seen-by anybody not too proud, and in too great a hurry to reach the Park, for it was getting late in the afternoon-knocking at the door of one of the numerous houses in Brompton Row which were labelled with the announcement ofApartments to let.' The particular mansion was one of the dingiest of its dingy neighbours, and, to judge by its windows and doorway, would have gained any number of marks for dirt' in a competitive examination. Not, however, that the peculiar accumulation which a late eminent statesman philosophised into matter in the wrong place' always gives a bad style to a house. There is dirt and dirt. In the case of a great mansion whose owner has so many places to live in that he cannot give his town residence more than three

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months in the year, it is associated with dignity compared with which. the bright door - knockers and whitened steps of little streets and terraces must feel abject indeed. But the house in Brompton Row was open to no inference of the kind. It was evidently inhabited, as a general rule, to the utmost extent of its capacity, and the dirt bore all the air of a necessary infliction.

What could the lady and gentleman be doing at such a house? No one would suppose that they intended to live there, for they had the appearance of persons not only of some rank in life, but of easy pecuniary resources. They were both well dressed, and the lady wore -but you may guess the kind of costume that the lady wore, for the lady was no other than May Pemberton, the gentleman being no other than her father.

I may as well tell you at once that they were going to live there that is to say, if the apartments happened to suit and this fact seemed somewhat difficult of investigation. The question of opening the door required, not exactly a pitched battle, but certainly a decided skirmish, to decide it. Captain Pemberton commenced operations by knocking and ringing; and finding that demonstration fail to engage the attention of the enemy, he followed it up by ringing and knocking by way of change of tactics. The new movement caused a reconnaissance from a second-floor window on the part of a face that looked feminine, but gave the observer no time to enter into further particulars, as it retreated rapidly upon being seen, and a pair of hands apparently belonging to it slammed down the casement in a decisive manner. The captain was just about to throw back his position towards the road, in order to take a more general view of the place previous to a final retirement, when he found that the other side had thrown out a skirmisher on his left flank, and that he and his daughter were being carefully surveyed from the area. The two sides being within range, a few shots were the natural consequence.

'What is it you want, sir?' asked the young lady, the author probably of the reconnaissance from above.

'I want the door opened in the first place,' said the captain, flattering himself that he had made his shot tell.

'And what then?' demanded the skirmisher, who felt by no means hit as yet.

'I want to see the apartments,' was the brisk rejoinder.

The last shot brought the girl down, or rather brought her up; for she disappeared from the area like a flash of lightning late for an appointment, and appeared with the street door in her hand with a celerity suggestive of relationship to Sir Boyle Rocher's famous bird, and seldom seen except in a Christmas pantomime; so that, to make the illusion complete, Captain Pemberton ought to have laid across the doorway so that she might trip over him as she stepped out, and May should have pirouetted into the road clad in a starry costume composed of any number of gossamer skirts. But I regret to say, in the cause of the public amusement, that neither of the pair took this dramatic view of the situation.

The domestic, too, dropped her pantomimic ways, and it was in a decorous spirit of legitimate comedy that she apologised for keeping the visitors waiting, and volunteered at once to conduct them up stairs.

The first appearance of the interior was not very promising. The domestic, in the first place, was peculiar. She had a decidedly pretty face, fresh and round, with bright eyes and a little turned-up nose, an expression of subdued sauciness, and a manner decidedly above her apparent position. So was her dress, indeed, in some respects; for over a common cotton dress, trailing a little on one side where the skirt seemed to be torn from the gathers, she wore a velvet mantle that had seen better days but might have seen worse, and at the back of her auburn hair a little bonnet having all the appearance of moving in the same circles of society as the mantle, being just a little battered but rather festive in appearance than

otherwise. The entry in which she stood was of the kind which may be called a hall if people please to be poetical, but is designated prosaically a passage. It was not undistinguished by a presence of misguided matter such as gave a character to the outside of the house; and the stairs conveyed a similar impression, heightened by the fact that the carpet enjoyed a proud state of freedom, and refused to be confined to cold conventionality by tyrannical brass rods, to which, however, resistance was easy, as they were too short to reach more than one of their staples at once, and so stuck about pleasantly in people's feet. In the distance, on the first landing, was a conservatory, which had a strong dash of a store-room and a slight suspicion of a kitchen about it. There were flowers here and there, and a cage with a couple of canaries hanging in the centre; but the floor was considerably occupied by somebody's luggage,' and the shelves received considerable additions from somebody's dinner, or rather the remains of it, which seemed to have been dropped there-plates, dishes, glasses and all-in one of the pantomimic flights of the evidently agile but not very neat-handed Phillis who now ushered them up stairs.

Ushered them, did I say? The rooms were on the first floor, and she reached them apparently in about three bounds.

Captain Pemberton and his daughter, who followed at a decorous pace, found her employing the difference of time in putting the principal apartment in order. Her idea of this process seemed to consist in hiding a cup of tea and some bread and butter, of which she had probably been partaking, in the interior of a convenient ottoman otherwise occupied by French romances in paper covers, throwing a shawl in a negligent way with a view to conceal as much as might be the shabbiness of an arm-chair, spreading the antimacassars, drawing the curtains so as to exclude excess of light, and dealing summarily with the least handsome of the vases on the chimney by putting them in her pocket.

She evidently considered that the new lodgers-she had made up her mind that they should become sowere people of a superior class, and would resent dilapidations and want of taste.

So when the captain and May arrived in the apartment its appearance was not so bad as they had expected from the look of the house generally; and when they found that the other rooms were comfortable enough for sleeping purposes, they were content to accept a basis of negotiation and to inquire as to details. Their questions on this head were answered in a triumphant manner. The entire house was on the eve of thorough renovation, and nothing could be more beautiful than all the beautiful things that her mistress had bought for it. Such was the assurance of the young lady, who added her regret that her mistress was not at home to give them further particulars. However, she, the domestic, knew all about everything, and had authority to act in the matter, even to closing the bargain. So when Captain Pemberton found that the rent was more moderate than that of any place he had seen in the course of the afternoon, and May assured him that she would herself be able to give such adornments to the rooms that they would not be recognisable in a day or two, the negotiations were brought to a conclusion by the domain being taken for a month. Both the captain and his daughter were indeed so troubled by the many fruitless efforts they had made to find a temporary home, that, as the hours wore on, they were ready to take almost anything they could find within their means.

And peo

ple not accustomed to searching for furnished apartments in London may be excused perhaps for feeling a little annoyed at the preposterous prices asked for indifferent accommodation, as well as the equally preposterous pretensions of the landladies, who, if you believe what they say, have always seen better days, do not keep lodging-houses, but are willing to let a few apartments which they do not require, in nine cases out of ten are daughters of colonels

in the army or country rectors, and, in exceptionally audacious instances, are related to living members of the peerage.

Captain Pemberton had such an habitual idea of the unquestionable nature of his own position that he said not a word about 'references;' but the young lady in charge was quite content to take the new lodgers for what they seemed, especially as the gentleman's card described him as Captain; for though Captains are not regarded by business people in London with the same superstitious veneration as in social circles at Shuttleton, the rank still goes a long

way, and gave every satisfaction in the present instance. No further time was therefore lost, and it was arranged that the pair should take possession as soon as they could get their baggage from the railway station, for it was only in the morning that they had arrived from the north. A cab having been prepared they drove off on their mission; and the young lady of the house, who took their interests in hand with wonderful enthusiasmstimulated too by the advance of a sovereign by the captain-promised that a plain dinner should be ready for them on their return.

THEgestion lies in the
THE stage-door!' What a world

well-known words. What a strange medley of memories, hopes, fears, fallacies, airy fancies, grim realities, practical work, ephemeral dreams, they conjure up even to the uninitiated who have lingered about the plain, sordid-looking porch so remote from the grand vestibule of the vast theatre, and there watched, with an almost painful curiosity, the closely-shaven men and pinkcomplexioned women who pass in and out on treasury days.' What a life of jest in earnest and laborious play may be found behind that dingy portal by those who have the talismanic pass-word that enables them to make acquaintance with the shadows that lie beyond it.

For few of those most accustomed to the mysterious precinct of 'the green-room' known as 'behind the scenes' ever become so perfectly familiar with it as to lose all sense of a mysterious disconnection from the outer world of everyday experience. The architects who build a theatre, the masons and carpenters, the joiners and smiths and painters, are no more free from this strange influence than are the casters and blowers of glass bottles from the effects of the subtle aroma of the liquors that those vessels may afterwards contain. There is

a ghostly habitancy about a playhouse, even when it is empty, which must always exert a spell upon stage-carpenters, sceneshifters, property-men-ay, even upon actors themselves. Although the ordinary actor can afford to think of little but himself and his part, it is not easy to imagine how any stage player could acquire that slight unreality of tone and manner (which, superimposed upon reality of character, make what we call 'good acting") unless it were by some inexplicable association of the place. This, however, is beside our present purpose; for it is not in its public aspect that we are about to regard the stage-door: not in all its bravery of wardrobe amidst flashing lights and paste jewels and the fire of five thousand pairs of eyes that sparkle from 'the front.' The green-room whose dangers wise old Dr. Johnson saw and shunned, nobly distrusting himself, is but a dim apartment today without the flare of gas to mitigate the tarnish of its oldfashioned chimney-glass and the seediness of its furniture. No brilliant costumes rustle and gleam as the actors and actresses pass in and out. Sober and even sorrowfulfaced men stand about the "entrances' to the stage or talk to the two or three ladies who wait to see

whether there is to be any rehearsal of the part for which they were called. Natty little bonnets, coquettish boots, and lace-edged petticoats there are certainly, and even in the men's dresses may be discovered here and there that peculiarity which marks the actor as a man who wears his clothes with a difference; the difference being that he will soon have to change them, and so has a tendency sometimes to remarkable patterns and strange reliefs of colour, as though he might as well take as much as possible out of fashion in a given time. The difference between the private costumes of actors is a wide one: so wide that they are easily distinguished, even by their unlikeness, as belonging to the profession.' Either they are more dressed than ordinary people, or much less so. Largish patterns, striking cuts,' and a generally pervading assertion of the right to fashionable distinction-or the extreme of an opulent plainness, clerically-cut black, solemn stocks and portentous collars, ebony canes and wide-brimmed hats. The fashion of actors is either that of sham church or sham world: there are few instances of anything between.

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It requires this tendency to reassure them that they are ordinary men. He who for four hours nightly may have to appear in a dress and accoutrements which are intended to destroy his own identity had need to adopt an exaggeration of his own proper costume to recover his personality and vindicate his right to recognition. The ladies have less occasion for this rehabilitating process, for the vagaries of female fashion leave such wide latitude as to make varieties of dress almost indifferent. Indeed, considering the present tendency of stage costumes, it must often be sufficient change for an actress to know that she is completely clothed instead of being only dressed for a part.'

But there is no need to draw these distinctions now. There is no audience in that vast dim cavernous area that lies before us as we stand on the great stage at

Drury Lane and look across an almost impenetrable vista at the holland-covered stalls and boxes, wondering how it can be that tonight that dark void shall be alive with eager, expectant faces bright with the gleam of light and the jewels on women's necks; that in place of the odour of gas and orange-peel mingled with the smell of sawdust and the inexpressible flavour that belongs to all shutup places, a subtle aroma of patchouli, musk, and lavender, the slight soupçon of kid gloves and macassar shall waft across this chasm of an orchestra and reach the prompter at the wing.

There is nothing more remarkable about a theatre, in its stagedoor aspect, than that the ghostly influence of which we spoke just now seems never to be associated with the front of the house. Audiences come and go, but seem to have no abiding haunt in the space before the curtain. As we look out from the footlights this morning we think of the rows of people who filled the seats last night, speculate on the faces of the vast audience that will gather there again in a few hours: but between the two there is no link in the dark tiers of boxes where one can just hear the sound of the broom but can see no shadowy forms save those of the attendants who are preparing for seven o'clock. No: it is behind the scenes that the ghostly company seems ever present; and the man who could spend a night there, even though he might be the fireman in charge, and so with plenty to do to see all safe before he sat down in his Windsor chair to make his early morning coffee, must be a fellow of dull clay indeed if he could ever feel that he was actually alone in the place.

There has been good company there day and night lately, however,-not ghostly company only, but real live flesh and blood, subsisting on substantial pork-chops, sausages, bread, cheese, and porter. The sounds of labour have reverberated in some of those hidden vistas all day long, and have been taken up at midnight again to go