“It’s Julia in the “Hunchback”--Sheridan Knowles’s “Hunchback,” you know,” replied Miss St. Albans, conquering her emotion with a stupendous effort, and telling her story with a most piteous air. “I was looking forward so to playing that very part. I played Juliet at Market Deeping, you know, and the _Deeping Advertiser_ said the kindest things about me,--that I reminded him of Miss O’Neill--though I can’t exactly imagine how the critic on the _Advertiser_ could remember Miss O’Neill’s acting, as he is not yet nineteen years of age. And I have such pretty dresses for Julia--a silver-gray silk, that was poor mamma’s wedding-dress, and is not so _very_ scanty, as I wear it looped up over a white muslin petticoat, in the King Charles style, you know. And just when I was so pleased at the idea that the piece was going to be done, Mr. de Mortemar came to me and told me, quite cruelly, that I am not to play Julia. And there is a young lady coming to play the part--at least, she is not very young--an amateur lady, who comes in a brougham with two horses, and whose dresses, they say, cost hundreds of pounds.” “An amateur lady! That is rather curious. And why does Mr. de Mortemar wish that she should play Julia?” “Mr. Johnson says she will pay him a great deal of money for the privilege. The houses have been, oh, so bad, and Mr. de Mortemar is very angry to find he doesn’t draw. He says there’s a cabal against him.” “Indeed! And this amateur lady comes to his relief, with her dresses that cost hundreds of pounds! I should have thought that an amateur lady, who keeps her brougham and pair, would scarcely care to make her _début_ at the Oxford Road Theatre. Have you seen this lady?” “Yes. She has been to rehearsal; and she has been here in the evening to see the call for the next day. I dare say she will come this evening. She is very haughty, and takes no more notice of me than if I were the ground under her feet; and, oh, you should see the heels of her boots!” “She must be a vulgar, presuming person, in spite of her boots and her brougham. But if I were you, I should not trouble myself at all about her or the character she is to play. It will only be one leaf stolen from your laurels.” He said this with a smile, in which there was some shade of sadness. There was something very sad to his eyes in the spectacle of this girlish struggler in the great battle of life, and in the thought of that frail foundation whereon her hopes rested.