But the soul of Thalia is under her bodice, into a neater than which, Anadyomene could not have laced herself. She is rapt in the reading, and with book held out, and face upraised, and figure displayed at its very best, she enthrals her audience, unconscious herself that this is more numerous than she might have supposed. On the threshold of the open door stand a couple of guests; one of them has, to us, no name; the other is a gay, rollicking young fellow, smartly dressed, a semi-military look about him, good humour rippling over his face, combined with an air of astonishment and delight. This is Captain Farquhar. His sight and hearing are wholly concentrated on that enchanted and enchanting girl, who, unmindful of aught but the "Scornful Lady," continues still reading aloud that rattling comedy of Beaumont and Fletcher. How the mother listened to it all is not to be told; but nearly a century later Queen Charlotte could listen to her daughters reading "Polly Honeycombe," and no harm done. We may fancy the young reader at the Mitre, whose name is Anne Oldfield, in that silvery voice for which she was famed, half in sadness and half in mirth, reading the lines in which the lady says:-- "All we that are call'd woman, know as well As men, it were a far more noble thing To grace where we are graced, and give respect There where we are respected: yet we practise A wilder course, and never bend our eyes On men with pleasure, till they find the way To give us a neglect. Then we too late Perceive the loss of what we might have had, And dote to death." Captain Farquhar, at whatever passage in the play, betrayed his presence by his involuntary applause. The girl looked towards him more pleased than abashed; and when the captain pronounced that there was in her the stuff for an exquisite actress, the fluttered thing clasped her hands, glowed at the prophecy, and protested in her turn, that of all conditions it was the one she wished most ardently to fulfil. From that moment the glory and the mischief were commenced. The tall girl stood up, her large eyes dilating, the assured future Lady Betty Modish and Biddy Tipkin, Farquhar's own Sylvia and Mrs. Sullen, the Violante and the Lady Townley that were to set the playgoing world mad with delight; the Andromache, Marcia, and Jane Shore, that were to wring tears from them; the supreme lady in all, but chiefest in comedy; and that "genteel," for which she seemed expressly born.