This long absence from London
had begun before my mother and I arrived there, and consequently
Philip and I had that evening the pleasurable anticipation of seeing
upon the stage a much-praised face that was quite new to us.
[Illustration: "IT WAS PHILIP'S CUSTOM, AT THIS TIME, TO ATTEND FIRST
NIGHTS AT THE PLAYHOUSES."]
There was the usual noisy throng of coaches, chairs, people afoot,
lackeys, chair-men, boys, and such, in front of the playhouse when we
arrived, and though we scanned all faces on whom the light fell, we
had our wonted disappointment regarding that of Captain Falconer. We
made our way to the pit, and passed the time till the bell and the
chorus "Hats off!" signalled the rising of the green curtain, in
watching the chattering assemblage that was every moment swelled from
the doors; but neither among the lace-ruffled bucks and macaronis who
chaffed with the painted and powdered ladies in the boxes, nor among
those dashing gentry who ogled the same towering-haired ladies from
the benches around us in the pit, did I perceive the elegant and easy
captain. We therefore fell back upon the pleasure to be expected from
the play itself, and when the curtain rose, I, for one, was resigned
to the absence of him we had come partly in quest of.
No sooner had Miss Warren come upon the stage, in her favourite part
of Fanny in "The Clandestine Marriage," revived for the occasion, than
I knew her as Madge Faringfield.
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