* * * * * The curtain had fallen upon the close of the second act of “The Beauty of Gotham,” and Miss Montague-Vance had disappeared for the nonce from the enraptured gaze of Oakhampton--it was at the Oakhampton Theater that the company was appearing to-night--when Mr. Milton Dante--his baptismal certificate read “Peter Burridge,” by the way--came round behind the scenes in a state of angry excitement and rapped loudly upon Miss Montague-Vance’s dressing-room door. “It’s me--Milt,” he said, in the quiet original grammar of his native Battersea. “I’ve got something to show you. Can I come in?” “No. If it’s anything important, just wait five minutes and I’ll be out.” The five minutes passed and the door opened, and out of it issued a creature so lovely, that even Mr. Milton Dante--who ought by this time to be used to it, Heaven knows--felt a little thrill as the vision dawned upon him. “Scotland! but you do look scrummy to-night!” he said admiringly. “Never mind how I look,” returned “the vision,” with an exceedingly earthy air. “You didn’t come here to pay me silly compliments, I fancy; or if you did, you are wasting your time and mine, to no purpose. What is it you want to say to me? Is it anything nice, or the reverse?” “The reverse, I’m afraid. Our next ‘stand’ is Crumplesea, and the company will have to go into apartments when we get there.” “Oh! no, it won’t; at least I won’t. None of your seaside apartments for me, if you please! Let others do what they like--or what you like; I suppose it amounts to that--but I want the best hotel in the place.” “Well, I’m afraid we can’t get in. Billet has just wired me that every hotel in the place is engaged by some old fool of a woman called Mrs. Bonair, and that--I say! great Scott! are you ill? Thunder! you’re as white as a ghost.” “Never mind what I am or what I am not,” she answered, in a singularly hard and singularly uneven voice. “So that woman has heard of my coming and has tried like this to shut me out, has she?” “What woman? What the dickens are you talking about? And I say, whatever has come over you? I expected you to raise the roof and to shy things when you heard of this, and I’m blessed if you’re not taking it as meek as Moses.” “No, not quite so meek--as you will learn before this affair is over. So that woman is going to try to shut me out, is she? Well, it will be a bad day’s work for her--I promise you that. I would have let her alone if she had been sensible and let me alone. But she chooses to show her claws, and so I’ll show mine.” “Who the dickens are you talking about?” “About this woman, this Mrs. Bonair, who is going to try the trick of shutting me out of Crumplesea.” “Great Scott! do you know her?” “Oh, yes, I know her--and what’s more, she shall know me in a few days, and better than she ever knew me before in her life. Look here, here’s something for you to know about me as well--I’ve a daughter.” “You?”