Two days afterwards, Elinor came to summon her to the drawing-room. They were all assembled, she said, to a rehearsal, and in the utmost confusion for want of a prompter, not a soul, except Miss Arbe, knowing a word, or a cue, of any part but his own; and Miss Arbe, who took upon her to regulate every thing, protested that she could not consent to go on any longer in so slovenly a manner. In this dilemma it had occurred to Elinor to have recourse to the stranger; but the stranger desired to be excused: Mrs Maple seemed now to be softened in her favour; and it would be both imprudent and improper to risk provoking fresh irritation, by coming forward in an enterprise that was a known subject of dissention. Elinor, when she had formed a wish, never listened to an objection. 'What an old fashioned style you prose in!' she cried; 'who could believe you came so lately from France? But example has no more force without sympathy, than precept had without opinion! However, I'll get you a licence from Aunt Maple in a minute.' She went down stairs, and, returning almost immediately, cried, 'Aunt Maple is quite contented. I told her I was going to send for Mr Creek, a horrible little pettifogging wretch, who lives in this neighbourhood, and whom she particularly detests, to be our prompter; and this so woefully tormented her, that she proposed you herself. I have ample business upon my hands, between my companions of the buskin, and this pragmatical old aunt; for Harleigh himself refused to act against her approbation, till I threatened to make over Lord Townly to Sir Lyell Sycamore, a smart beau at Brighthelmstone, that all the mammas and aunts are afraid of. And then poor aunty was fain, herself, to request Harleigh to take the part. I could manage matters no other way.' Personal remonstrances were vain, and the stranger was forced down stairs to the theatrical group. All that was known of her situation having been sketched by Elinor, and detailed by Selina, the mixt party there assembled, was prepared to survey her with a curiosity which she found extremely abashing. She requested to have the book of the play; but Elinor, engaged in arranging the entrances and exits, did not heed her. Harleigh, however, comprehending the relief which any occupation for the eyes and hands might afford her, presented it to her himself. It preserved her not, nevertheless, from a volley of questions, with which she was instantly assailed from various quarters. 'I find Ma'am, you are lately come from abroad,' said Mr Scope, a gentleman self-dubbed a deep politician, and who, in the most sententious manner, uttered the most trivial observations: 'I have no very high notion, I own, of the morals of those foreigners at this period. A man's wife and daughters belong to any man who has a taste to them, as I am informed. Nothing is very strict. Mr Robertspierre, as I am told, is not very exact in his dealings.'