As I saw her graceful figure and elegant motion, I again felt a gush of gratification fill my heart at having interfered so effectually in her favour. Beautiful and modest Miss Claribel! I thought; it is to me you will owe your triumph at Drury Lane, and not solitary shall you be in your success! No, there's a Hamlet shall respond to all the divine tendernesses of the sweet Ophelia--an Othello who will weep tears of blood over the death-couch of your Desdemona--a Romeo--But here I was nearly run over by a West End omnibus; and wondering whether Miss Claribel would be as delighted with my support as I was with hers, I got into the 'bus, which awoke me from my reverie, and returned home. I met Catsbach in the passage. "My dear fellow," he said, "I insist on your coming with me to-night. I have something very interesting to show you." "Where'er you like," I cried in a sort of rapture--"'whatever realms to see.' My arm a nobler victory ne'er gained, and I am at your command. 'Go on: I follow thee.'" "Come up to me at seven; bring your flute. We shall have a cheerer or two before we start; and you can tell me all about the rehearsal of your play." "Is all right about the rehearsal, Charles?" said my mother, as I entered her room radiant with delight. "Yes, mother--all is going charmingly--but not at the Stepney Star. No! brighter skies are opening--more enduring glory and wealth, mother--sweetened by the delightful thought that it has been honourably won, and that it will all be spent in adding comforts--ay! luxuries to you! I am to be paid a hundred pounds next week; the play is to be brought out at Drury Lane; my uncle will hear of my triumph the moment he steps on English ground, and conscience will gnaw his prosaic heart for his neglect and harshness; the Queen will probably attend the first night; horses, and spectacles, and _tableaux vivants_ shall be banished from the English stage; and when people in the street see you and me in the nice little Brougham I intend to keep for you, they'll say the good times of the drama are come back again; that's the author of Hengist and Horsa." It is useless to describe our rapture. We got a map of London, and looked over it all in search of a nice new street to go and live in. My mother rather leant to the classic retirements of Brompton, but I put a great splash of ink on Wilton Place. "Lord John Russell," I exclaimed, "began by writing a play, and I, too, will be a Belgravian." CHAPTER IX.