“She might offset that pretty jade Fenton at the Fields, eh, Bob?” said Cibber. “They’re of an age. If the town took to her”-- “If her Belvidera made one pretty fellow weep, why not another?” added Wilks. “Here--where is’t he says that, when she went out, for many moments the pit was silent as the grave--and that then the applause was deep--not shrill--and very long? ’Gad, if ’tis a Barry come again, and we could lay hands on her, the house would be made!” Gibber sighed. “You’re dreaming, Bob,” he said good-humoredly. “’Twas but a pack of Virginia planters, noisy over some _belle sauvage_ with a ranting tongue.” “Men’s passions are the same, I take it, in Virginia as in London,” answered the other. “If the _belle sauvage_ can move to that manner of applause in one spot of earth, she may do so in another. And here again he says, ‘A dark beauty, with a strange, alluring air ... a voice of melting sweetness that yet can so express anguish and fear that the blood turns cold and the heart is wrung to hear it’--Zoons, sir! What would it cost to buy off this fellow Stagg, and to bring the phoenix overseas?” “Something more than a lottery ticket,” laughed the other, and beckoned to the drawer. “We’ll wait, Bob, until we’re sure ’tis a phoenix indeed! There’s a gentleman in Virginia with whom I’ve some acquaintance, Colonel William Byrd, that was the colony’s agent here. I’ll write to him for a true account. There’s time enough.” So thought honest Cibber, and wrote at leisure to his Virginia acquaintance. It made small difference whether he wrote or refrained from writing, for he had naught to do with the destinies of Darden’s Audrey. ’Twas almost summer before there came an answer to his letter. He showed it to Wilks in the greenroom, between the acts of “The Provoked Husband.” Mrs. Oldfield read it over their shoulders, and vowed that ’twas a moving story; nay, more, in her next scene there was a moisture in Lady Townly’s eyes quite out of keeping with the vivacity of her lines.