"Mother!" cried Esther, in a deep tone of remonstrance; but Portia was unconscious of interruption. The other actors held their books in their hands, and, for the most part, read their speeches; but Peggy trusted entirely to memory, and sighed and yawned over the denunciation of her lovers, with evident satisfaction to herself as well as to the beholders. Nerissa read her part "conscientiously," as the newspapers would say, punctuating her sentences in exemplary fashion, and laying the emphasis upon the right words as directed by the stage manageress; but, such is the contrariness of things, that, with all her efforts, the effect was stiff and stifled, while Peggy drawled through her sentences, or gabbled them over at break-neck speed, used no emphasis at all, or half a dozen running, at her own sweet will, and was so truly Portia that the vicar wondered dreamily if he should have to interview the Duke of Morocco in his study, and Mrs Asplin sighed unconsciously, and told herself that the child was too young to be troubled with lovers. She must not dream of accepting any one of them for years to come! At the end of the scene, however, anxiety about her beloved _portiere_ overpowered everything else in the mind of the vicar's wife, and she rushed after the actors to call out eager instructions. "Hang it up at once--there's good children. If you put it down on a chair, Peggy will sit on it as sure as fate! And oh! my table centres! Put them back in the drawer if you love me! Wrap them up in the tissue paper as you found them!"