The wretched _Phyllis_, immediately after the ball, distracted by her sense of shame and degradation, speeds through night and storm to her benefactor, the compassionate clergyman, finds him in his study, and, appealing to him as a Christian minister, tells him her sad story and supplicates for any word of comfort. The arrival of _Ann Cruger_, who has followed her, prevents the disclosure of her seducer’s name. The clergyman, however, surmises the truth, and when his brother _Dick_ returns home denounces his iniquity, implores him to make the only possible reparation, and finally induces that selfish sinner,--whose conduct has been that of a blackguard, soften it how you may,--to wed the girl whom he has wronged. A midnight marriage then ensues, the _Rev. John_ uniting in holy matrimony his dissolute brother and the woman whom, in his blindness, he has himself wished to wed. This scene is crowded with interest, incident, character, feeling, suspense, and dramatic effect. Later, _Dick van Buren_ has died, the _Rector_ has discovered that he loves _Ann Cruger_ and that she loves him (and not another, as for a time he feared), and general felicity prevails. The surge of deep feeling in this play is sometimes effectively commingled with playful levity: its pivotal scene contains a strong, vital, emotional appeal. Under Belasco’s expert direction it was richly set on the Lyceum stage and it was acted with exceptional felicity and force. Nelson Wheatcroft played the libertine, _Dick van Buren_, in a way to make him credible and somewhat to redeem the cruel turpitude of his conduct. Herbert Kelcey was duly grave, gentle, manly, and eloquent as the _Rector_. Effie Shannon, as _Bess_, the clergyman’s sister, with her sweet face and agile figure, enlivened the representation by her effervescence of girlish frolic. Grace Henderson,--much commended as the _Effie Deans_ of this play,--gave an admirable personation of weak, bewitching womanhood. The persistent choice of a singularly beautiful and engaging woman for assumption of persons to be abandoned was again mysteriously exemplified in the casting of this actress for _Phyllis_. “The Charity Ball” was first produced at the Lyceum, before a representative and cordial audience, on November 19, 1888, and it had 200 consecutive performances there. As originally produced the play was thus cast: