He bade his sister put herself
at her best, drank with her to their success, and went and engaged a
hairdresser and a maid. They went that night, in a hackney-coach, to
the play at Drury Lane.
The open-mouthed gazing of her new maid, the deftly spoken admiration
of her hairdresser, and the mirror upon her dressing-table, had
prepared Madge for triumph. Her expectations were not disappointed,
but they were almost forgotten. Her pleasure at sight of the restless,
chattering crowd; her interest in the performance; her joy in seeing,
in fine: supplanted half the consciousness of being seen. But she was,
indeed, stared at from all parts of the house; people looked, and
nudged one another; and the powdered bucks and beauties in the
side-boxes, glancing up, forgot their own looks in examining hers.
Ned was elated beyond measure. He praised her all the way home in the
coach, and when they stood at last on the step of their lodging-house,
he waited a moment before going in, and looked back toward the Strand,
half-thinking that some susceptible and adventurous admirer might have
followed their conveyance to the door.
The next day, Sunday, he took her to church, at St. James's in
Piccadilly, where they had difficulty in getting seats, and where
several pious dowagers were scandalised at the inattention of their
male company to the service. Ned walked out alone in the afternoon,
but, to his surprise, he was not accosted by any gentleman pretending
to recognise him as some one else, as a means of knowing him as
himself.
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