CHAPTER IX.
THE FIRST PERFORMANCE.
The opera-house was full from floor to dome. A cheerful multitude crowded the body of the house with smiling faces, and filled it with gay colors, till it shone out gorgeously, like a thickly-planted flower-garden. The boxes filled, more slowly; but, after half an hour of soft, silken rustle and answering smiles, they, too, were crowded with distinguished men and beautiful women of the British aristocracy, and the whole arena was lighted up with the splendor of their garments and the flaming brightness of their jewels. Then came a movement, and a low murmur of discontent, which the grandest efforts of the orchestra could not silence. The hour had arrived, but the curtain was still down. Was there to be a disappointment, after all?
In the midst of this growing confusion a party entered one of the most prominent boxes that drew the general attention in that part of the house. A lady in crimson velvet, with some gossamer lace about her arms and bosom, and a cobweb of the same rich material floating from the thick braids of her coal-black hair, came into the box, followed by a gentleman so like her that people exclaimed at once:
"It is her brother!"
These two persons were accompanied by a bright young girl, in white muslin, with a blue ribbon drawn through her hair like a snood, and a string of large pearls on her neck. The girl was beautiful as a Hebe, and bright as a star—so bright and so beautiful that a whole battery of glasses was turned on the box the moment she entered it. Then a murmur ran from lip to lip.
"It is Lady Hope, that person who was once a governess, and the young lady must be Hope's daughter by his first marriage—the future Lady Carset, if the old countess ever dies, which she never will, if it is only to spite that woman yonder, whom she hates. Beautiful!"
"You are speaking of Lady Hope? Yes, very; but strange! Night and morning are not farther apart than those two. Yet I am told they are devoted to each other."
"Not unlikely. See how the woman smiles when the Hebe speaks to her! Wonderful fascination in that face. Just the person to carry away a man like Hope."
Here the conversation was broken off by an impatient outburst of the audience.
In obedience to it the curtain rolled up, and the first act of "Traviata" commenced.