Those possibilities (as he understands them), which he has utilized in several plays, are specially exemplified in “The Charity Ball,”--so named because its purpose is to inculcate the virtue of taking a charitable view of human infirmity, and also because one important scene of it occurs at a ball given for charity, in the New York Metropolitan Opera House. It rightfully ranks among the best existent dramas of its didactic and benevolent class. The principal characters in “The Charity Ball” are the _Rev. John van Buren_, his brother, _Dick van Buren_, _Ann Cruger_, and _Phyllis Lee_. The _Rev. John_ is Rector of a fashionable church, in New York, while _Dick_ is a Wall Street stock gambler, a person of exceptional ability, naturally amiable, but weak in character, self-indulgent, and wild; he is harassed by business cares and is breaking under the strain of his speculative pursuits. _Dick_ has seduced _Phyllis Lee_, an orphan, and, though he is represented as being truly fond of her, has discarded her, with the purpose of marrying _Ann Cruger_, who is an heiress. _Ann Cruger_, secretly, is enamoured of the _Rev. John_. The _Rector_ befriends _Phyllis_, not, however, being aware of her misfortune and miserable plight as the victim of his brother’s duplicity, and the parson soon succumbs to her charms, fancies himself in love with her, and becomes a wooer. His method of courtship is indirect. Being inscrutably,--and impossibly,--blind to the amorous attachment of _Ann Cruger_, he seeks the aid of that lady to win for him the love of _Phyllis_. Then occurs the gay scene of the Charity Ball, in the course of which a painful interview happens between _Phyllis_ and _Dick van Buren_, supplemented by _Phyllis’s_ revelation to _Ann Cruger_ of her relation to _Dick_, his admission to _Ann_ of his misconduct, and her offer to _Phyllis_ of an asylum in her own home.