Very much to Colin's astonishment,--as well it might be, considering that he had never before seen aught of the kind more extensive than a country inn,--he was suddenly ushered by his companion into a “saloon,” containing about from three to five hundred persons, arranged on forms placed across the room, each form having before it a narrow raised ledge, not unlike those sometimes seen in the pews of churches, on which to lodge the respective pots, bottles, and glasses of the company. Down the avenues, which ran longitudinally, for the convenience of passage, certain individuals were calling shrimps, screwed up in conical white packages of one penny each; while the perfume, if such it could be called, from some scores of pipes and cigars, ascended in multitudinous little clouds above the heads of the company, and covered as with a filmy atmosphere the frescoed landscapes with which the walls above were bountifully decorated. At the remote end of the room appeared a stage and proscenium on a small scale, after the fashion of a Minor Theatre. Shortly after Colin and his friend had taken their seats, a gentleman commenced playing an overture upon an instrument which had been highly admired there ever since its introduction, as it formed within itself a magnificent combination of organ, piano, clarionet, and bagpipe, and possessed besides the additional advantage of occasionally producing tones at its own will and pleasure to which those of no other instrument in the world might be compared, and of which no adequate conception can be formed, unless the reader has enjoyed the exquisite delight of hearing a “fantasia extempore” played on the hinges of some unoiled door, as it gradually, and in varying time, declined from a wide open position to the door-cheek. As I have not the most distant intention of wearying either the reader or myself with a detailed description of the night's entertainment, I shall merely observe, that after the curtain drew up, a succession of songs, comic, patriotic, and sentimental, was introduced, and sung by various members of the professional company. Amongst these appeared one, on seeing whom Wintlebury exclaimed to his companion, “That's my sister!” Colin looked. A beautiful-complexioned girl was on the stage,--bright-eyed, lively, and attractively attired in the showy costume of a theatrical Neapolitan maid. After a brief prelude on the famous Orchestræolophonagpipe, she sung, apparently not without effort, but with the most bewitching assumption of modesty telling its troubles to the moon, a song the burden of which ran “_Too many lovers will puzzle a maid!_” “Encore!--encore!” enthusiastically cried a gentleman, who was sitting a few seats in advance, as he clapped his hands madly together, and tossed his legs at random under the seat before him, “admirable, bi'gar!--me quite consent vith dat. Too many _is_ too much!”