This day of triumph might be nearer than either friends or scoffers anticipated. Mr. ELLISTON DRURY had taken a warm interest in her work; had indorsed the advice she had received to try _Before the Dawn_ at a _Matinée_; had consented to play the leading character; and, what was more interesting still, had volunteered to coach her in the part of the heroine, if she was willing to impersonate that poetic and self-sacrificing creation. Miss DE GONCOURT was willing to place herself in the hands of Mr. ELLISTON DRURY; Miss DE GONCOURT did place herself in his hands; and oh the rapture of hearing her words read to the assembled company of "Artistes" in the Green Room of the Parthenon Theatre on the day when the parts were distributed! The delight of those first rehearsals! She felt so much at home on the Stage, that she began to dream of a pre-existence in which she had been a priestess of Art, somewhat after the manner of her Roman girl who, crowned with a poisoned diadem, was sacrificed in the Temple, but to live again with the gods in a sublimated world of song. Mr. ELLISTON DRURY accompanied her to the train after each rehearsal, and paid her so much homage, that she began to associate him in her tender feminine mind with the Roman youth for whose love she was martyred at the shrine; and, long before the eventful morning came, Mr. ELLISTON DRURY (who had received a fortnight's notice at the Parthenon, but still had the future all before him) had made up his mind to hang up his hat, for good, in the æsthetic little hall of the DE GONCOURT inside the blue-and-white palings of the Bedford Park Estate. "Was it not a success, then, _Before the Dawn_?" Ask the ring of authors, the conspirators, the tribe of envy, hatred, and malice assembled on that memorable occasion to crush the new authoress. Ask the leading actors, who had always dreaded the day when Mr. ELLISTON DRURY should play a star part in a Metropolitan Theatre. No, Ladies and Gentlemen, _Before the Dawn_ was a failure. Certain prominent critics were suborned to say so; and one of them, more cruel than the rest, declared that all the humorous range of modern Burlesque did not supply a reminiscence so positively comic as the scene in which the Roman Maiden, staggering under her poisoned crown (which would fall into an irresistibly funny angle with the Actress's un-Roman nose), hurled back upon TIBERIUS CÆSAR the curse of the avenging gods.