As he finished speaking the overture, which had now been on for some time, ceased, and the curtain went up on a very pretty bit of stage setting.

There was no curtain-raiser, and the first act was well constructed and interesting from the commencement. It was delightful to me to feel, as I did, that I was no longer blasé of town life, or the mimic life of the theatre, and I was inclined to resent the interruption when Farnham nudged me, whispering–

"There's Wildred and his friends just coming into the stage box. By Jove! what a pretty girl!"

10I looked up, because I was sure the volatile American would give me no peace until I had done so; and then, having looked up, I promptly forgot the play and its dramatis personæ.

10

Two years I had spent in Africa and Egypt, and I had not seen many fair faces during that time of travel and campaigning. I was in a mood, therefore, to appreciate the delicate loveliness of English women; but, even had I been surfeited with beauty, my eyes would have lingered in a species of wonder on the girl just seating herself in a corner of the stage box. It is possible that I have seen other women as beautiful, many more classically perfect of feature, but never have I looked upon a face so radiant, so bewildering.

For the moment I scarcely glanced at the girl's companions, though I was vaguely conscious that there was an older woman, and that two men were taking chairs in the darker background of the box.

All the other figures on the stage and in the auditorium became meaningless for me. There 11 was the dazzling girl in white, and, so far as I was concerned, no one else in the theatre.

11

The simple, snowy frock, without jewels or ornamentation of any kind, was the most becoming frame which could have been chosen for the picture. The oval face, with its pearly skin, its curved red lips, its starry, long-lashed eyes (which might have been brown or violet, so far as I could tell), and the aureole of waving, ruddy gold hair were all so vivid in their marvelous effect of colour, that the dead white gown set them off far more artistically than the most carefully-chosen tints could have done.

The girl could not, I thought, have been more than twenty, and every turn of the beautifully-poised little head, every dimpling smile, told that she was full of 

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