The house was full and fashionable, both stage-boxes being occupied by members of the Manchester Yeomanry, resplendent in silver and blue. Laurence Aspinall, John Walmsley, and Ben Travis were of the party. In the pit were the critics, pressing as closely as possible to the stage. Nods and smiles from friends in different quarters of the theatre greeted the component parts of Madame Broadbent’s bevy of innocents, and smiles responded. Then rose the green curtain upon Edmund Kean’s Othello, and Mrs. M‘Gibbon’s Desdemona. The audience was enthralled. Act by act the players kept attention fixed, and all went well until the last scene. But, as Othello pressed the murderous pillow down, one of Madame Broadbent’s white-frocked misses in the front row, with whose relatives Desdemona lodged when she was not Desdemona, started up, and cried out piteously— “He’s killing Mrs. M‘Gibbon! He’s killing Mrs. M‘Gibbon!” The clear voice rang through the house, to the consternation of the actors, the amusement of some, and the annoyance of the audience. Some of the officers laughed outright in the very face of the tragic Moor; but Madame Broadbent was furious, all the more that she was bound to suppress her passion then and there. For the credit of her “Academy,” she, however, felt bound to resent so flagrant a breach of decorum. Tapping the tearful culprit on the shoulder with her ready fan, in a stern whisper, scarcely less audible than the child’s impulsive tribute to the great tragedian, she asked, “How can you bemean yourself so far, miss, to the disgrace of the school?” and beckoning the child forth, she was passed to Miss Nuttall at the very back of the box, sobbing more for Mrs. M‘Gibbon than for Mrs. Broadbent. This caused a change of places, which brought Miss Ashton more prominently into view. Laurence Aspinall, an ardent admirer of beauty, put his hand on the shoulder of the officer before him, and said—“Good heavens, Walmsley! Do you see that lovely creature in Mother Broadbent’s box?” “Which?” was the obtuse answer. “Which!” (contemptuously echoed.) “The divine beauty in celestial blue. Who is she?” And his admiring gaze brought a conscious blush to the young lady’s forehead, although the querist was beyond her hearing. “In blue?” And Walmsley lazily scanned the group. “Oh! that’s Charlotte’s cousin, Augusta Ashton! Yes, she is rather pretty;” and the married man turned away to the stage. “Rather pretty! She’s an angel! You must introduce me!” “Well, well!” answered the other testily, anxious to end a colloquy which distracted his attention from the tragedy, “I’ll see. But she’s only a school-girl—not yet sixteen!” “Egad! but she looks seventeen, and she’ll mend of that disqualification every day;” and still he kept his eyes on Augusta in a manner extremely disconcerting, though her romantic little heart fluttered, for in him she recognised the “Adonis” who had reared his horse so threateningly in front of her Uncle Chadwick’s house.