up on the seat,” to step forward from bench to bench, and then wait in painful pre-eminence while Issy, and Cecy, and Queeney, and Miss Coates, settled how they could make room, or which should vacate her seat in her favour. In spite of the awkwardness of her situation she stood with such quiet, resigned, yet dignified grace, that ridicule could not touch her. The moment she was seated with her back to us, and out of hearing, Lady de Brantefield turned to her son and asked “Who is she?” “An East Indian, I should guess, by her dark complexion,” whispered Lady Anne to me. Some feather or lappet intercepted my view of her face, but from the glimpse I caught of it as she passed, it struck me as uncommonly interesting, though with a peculiar expression and foreign air--whether she was handsome or not, though called upon to decide, I could not determine. But now our attention was fixed on the stage. It was announced to the audience that, owing to the sudden illness of the actor who was to have performed the principal part in the comedy advertised for this night, there was a necessity for changing the play, and they should give in its stead the Merchant of Venice. The Merchant of Venice and Macklin the Jew!--Murmurs of discontent from the ladies in my box, who regretted their sentimental comedy and their silver-toned Barry, were all lost upon me; I rejoiced that I should see Macklin in Shylock. Before the performance began, my attention was again caught by the proceedings of the persons in the next box. There seemed to be some sudden cause of distress, as I gathered from exclamations of “How unlucky!--How distressing!--What shall we do?--What can we do?--Better go away--carriage gone!--must sit it out--May be she won’t mind--Oh! she will--Shylock!--Jessica!--How unfortunate!--poor Miss Berry!”