Such a piece as this seems written to be acted in a drawing-room. There is no declamation, there are no heroics. Nothing is wanted but coquettish grace in the women, ease and assurance in the men. And who can imagine any thing more delightful than Florence Lobyer in the _rôle_ of the persecuted Countess? Such bewitching insolence of the grand dame; such fascinating hauteur; such delicious grace in refusing; such lovely tenderness in the moment of relenting. And the Pompadour dress--that most perfect of all fashions ever invented to render loveliness irresistible--that costume in which plebeian beauty loses its alloy of vulgar clay, and is sublimated into the ideal--that bewildering and bewitching attire which imparts to the snub-nose of a Dunbarry a grace unsurpassed by the classic profile of a Phryne--what of Florence Lobyer in blue brocade and old point, powder and diamonds, patches and hoop, high-heeled shoes with glittering buckles and gold-embroidered stockings? If Mr. Lobyer had chosen his wife because she was the best thing to be had in the way of wives, he had good reason to be proud of her to-night, when she flashed her beauty and her diamonds upon the dazzled eyes of his guests. He was proud of her--after his own sullen fashion--and angry with her too; for another man shared the applause which she won, and made himself the central feature in the night's triumph. It was not of Mr. Lobyer's wealth, or the glories of Pevenshall--the oxydised silver candelabra and epergnes--the looking-glass plateau, with its border of silver bulrushes and silver stags drinking in the placid stream; it was not of the splendour of Mr. Lobyer's dinner-table, or the cost of Mr. Lobyer's modern pictures, that these people would talk when they went home. The event of the evening was the amateur acting, which the master of Pevenshall stigmatised as tomfoolery; and the triumphs of the evening belonged to Florence and Sir Nugent.