The threat of the whip, however, had the effect of quietening Miss Viva for a good two minutes, and in the meantime Fate sent an unexpected deliverance. Certain portions of the auditorium were portioned off into squares, which did duty for private boxes, and into the nearest of these there now entered a party of ladies and children, in whom he recognised some intimate friends. To advance towards them and beg the use of a vacant chair was the work of a moment, when he proceeded to pour the story of his woes into the ear of the young lady by his side. She was fair and pretty, charmingly dressed, and almost as supercilious in expression as he was himself. "Little wretch! How impossible of her!" she ejaculated, and bent forward to examine the wretch forthwith. Viva had climbed on the empty seat, and was craning her little face to right and left to discover where the deserter had fled. With her great blue eyes and rose-leaf complexion set in a frame of golden hair, she looked like an angel from heaven, or one of the sweet-faced cherubs who float in space at the top of Christmas cards and valentines. But it was not on Viva that the young lady's attention was riveted, but upon the figure by her side--Mamzelle Paddy in all the glory of a French hat, wearing the very biggest hair-ribbon in her possession, in honour of the occasion. At sight of the profile the young lady started and cried, "It is! It must be!" Then she dodged backwards, saw the hat, and became filled with doubt. "No, it can't be! It's much too smart!" Finally Pixie turned round to apostrophise Miss Viva, who was in the act of striding the back of her chair, and immediately a flash of recognition leapt from eye to eye. The French hat nodded until the feathers fairly quivered with the strain, and the face beneath became a beam of delight, in which eyes disappeared and the parted lips stretched back to a surprising distance. The fair-haired young lady had more respect to appearance in her recognition, but all the same she grew quite pink with pleasure, and cried eagerly-- "It's my dearest friend! We were at school together, but she has been in Paris finishing her education, and I have not heard from her since her return. I must speak to her in the interval--I really must! You can't think what a fascinating little creature she is when you get to know her." "Ah, really! She looks distinctly--er--out of the common," drawled the supercilious man lazily. "Rather interesting-looking woman, the children's mother. Some relation of your friend, I suppose?" "Oh, I suppose so! The O'Shaughnessys are a very good family. Very well connected. Beautiful old place in Ireland," drawled the young lady in her turn, and in the intervals of the performance she proceeded to expatiate on the grandeur of the O'Shaughnessy family, the beauty of Esmeralda, and the riches of her husband, until her companion looked forward with increased interest to the coming introduction.