Why, in a poorly-filled house, there should always be dispiriting and aggravating delays between the falling and the rising of the act-drop, unknown to a well-attended theatre, is one of the enigmas of theatrical existence only to be solved by the masters of the craft; but it is indisputable that a scanty audience, naturally disposed to be captious and low-spirited, is always rendered more dismal and more captious by heart-sickening intervals of waiting, that would spoil the pleasure of an evening with Edmund Kean, or Charles Mathews, but which, when endured for the sake of a De Mortemar, are exasperating in the highest degree. During such an interval, Laurence Desmond waited with tolerable patience, entertained by the most hackneyed of waltzes and polkas, performed by a feeble orchestra, before the curtain rose for the third act of the _Lady of Lyons_. The flabby act-drop, with its faded picture, did at last ascend, and, after a little preliminary skirmishing, Miss St. Albans appeared, conducted by the great De Mortemar, who wore a long black cloak, and looked unutterable things at the gallery with his solemn eyes, the darkness whereof was intensified by very palpable half-circles of Indian ink. Miss St. Albans had very little to do in this scene. She had only to appear bewildered, and a little alarmed by the grinning landlord and servants, and very much in love with her prince. If she had any difficulty in giving expression to such simple sentiments, Mr. De Mortemar saved her from the exhibition of her incompetency, for he contrived to keep her back to the audience throughout the scene, and so stifled and smothered her against his manly breast, that all Mr. Desmond could see of his tutor’s daughter was a slender girlish figure robed in white, and a fair head half concealed by the stiff curve of Mr. de Mortemar’s encircling arm. The first scene was short and unimportant; and after it came the cottage-scene--the great scene for Pauline--in which the merchant’s haughty daughter finds that her Italian prince is only a self-educated gardener’s son, with a mother in a white apron.