“He can come too,” said Amanda. “I like to have two gentlemen. There is always plenty for two gentlemen to do. Won’t you come, Mr. Frederick Eastwood? But anyhow I must go,” she continued, turning to her father, who was almost as abject in his devotion as Frederick was. Had she been anything short of perfection Frederick would have hesitated much before he consented to show himself in public with Mr. Batty and his daughter; indeed, the possibility of such a thing would have driven him frantic. But now he had no such thoughts. If he hesitated it was but to calculate what was going on in the theatrical world; what there was worthy to be seen by her. He was not much of a theatre-goer, but he knew what was being played, and where. He suggested one or two of what were supposed to be the best plays; but she put him down quite calmly. She had already decided that she was going to see one of the sensational pieces of the day, a drama (I do not know it, I may be doing it injustice) the chief point in which was the terrific situation of the hero or heroine, who was bound down on the line of a railway when the train was coming. It was this lofty representation which she had set her heart on seeing. Frederick handed her into the cab which was immediately sent for. He sat by her in it; he breathed in the atmosphere of “Ess. bouquet” which surrounded her. Now and then he thought, with a glimmer of horror, of meeting somebody whom he knew; but his mind was only at intervals sufficiently free to harbour this thought. It was, however, with a certain fright that he found himself in the stage-box, which it appeared had been provided beforehand for Miss Amanda’s pleasure. “I prefer a box,” she said to Frederick, “here one can be comfortable, and papa if he likes can fall asleep in a comfortable chair; but I can’t understand a lady making herself happy down there.” She pointed to the stalls, where Frederick was too happy not to be. There was, of course, somebody he knew in the second row, who found him out he feared in the dignity of his box, where Miss Amanda had no idea of hiding herself. “She objected to her gentlemen,” she said, “taking refuge behind a curtain,” and she did no such injustice to her own beauty as to conceal it. She dropped her cloak from her shoulders, and gave the house all the benefit; and she kept calling Frederick’s attention to one thing and another, insisting that he should crane his neck round the corner to look at this or that. Her beauty and her dress and evident willingness to be admired drew many eyes, and Frederick felt that he had a share in the _succès_ which he could very well have dispensed with. He had experienced a good many adventures, but very few like this. He had always been very respectable under the eyes of the world; to be sure, he was quite respectable now; there was no fault to be found with the party--his beautiful companion, indeed, was something quite new, and not very much