The Usher will pass pop-corn between the Acts. Beds may be ordered at 10.30. * * * * * The scene between Adam and Orlando went off with good effect; and when Celia and Rosalind came through the trees in an affectionate attitude, and Celia’s blithe voice broke the stillness with, ‘I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry,’ there was a hearty burst of applause which almost frightened them into silence. At the end of the first act everybody was delighted; the stage-manager, carpenter, scene-shifter, costumier, and all the stars were called successively before the curtain. Hop Yet declared it was ‘all the same good as China theatre’; and every one agreed to that criticism without a dissenting voice. To be sure, there was an utter absence of stage-management, and all the ‘traditions’ were remarkable for their absence; but I fancy that the spirits of Siddons and Kemble, Macready and Garrick, looked down with kind approval upon these earnest young actors as they recited the matchless old words, moving to and fro in the quaint setting of trees and moonlight, with an orchestra of cooing doves and murmuring zephyrs. [Picture: Forest scene] The forest scenes were intended to be the features of the evening, and in these the young people fairly surpassed themselves. Any one who had seen Neilson in her doublet and hose of silver-grey, Modjeska in her shades of blue, and Ada Cavendish in her lovely suit of green, might have thought Bell’s patched-up dress a sorry mixture; yet these three brilliant stars in the theatrical firmament might have envied this little Rosalind the dewy youth and freshness that so triumphed over all deficiencies of costume. Margery’s camping-dress of grey, shortened to the knee, served for its basis. Round the skirt and belt and sleeves were broad bands of laurel-leaf trimming. She wore a pair of Margery’s long grey stockings and Laura’s dainty bronze Newport ties. A soft grey chudda shawl of Aunt Truth’s was folded into a mantle to swing from the shoulder, its fringes being caught up out of sight, and a laurel-leaf trimming added. On her bright wavy hair was perched a cunning flat cap of leaves, and, as she entered with Polly, leaning on her manzanita staff, and sighing, ‘Oh Jupiter, how weary are my spirits!’ one could not wish a lovelier stage picture. And so the play went on, with varying fortunes. Margery was frightened to death, and persisted in taking Touchstone’s speeches right out of his mouth, much to his discomfiture. Adam’s beard refused to stay on; so did the moustache of the Banished Duke, and the clothes of Sylvius. But nothing could dampen the dramatic fire of the players, nor destroy the enthusiasm of the sympathetic audience.