Thus far my venturous enterprise had prospered. I now found myself in a narrow passage, with another door at the farther end of it; and I prepared to traverse winding stairs, subterranean passages, and suites of tapestried apartments. I therefore advanced, and opened the door; but in an instant started back; for I had beheld a lighted hall, of modern architecture, with gilded balustrades, ceiling painted in fresco, Etruscan lamps, and stucco-work! Yes, it was a villa, or a casino, or a pallazo, or any thing you please but a castello. Amazement! Horror! What should I do? whither turn? delay would be fatal. Again I peeped. The hall was empty; so, putting down my lamp, I stole across it to an open door, and looked through the chink. I had just time to see a Persian saloon, and in the centre a table laid for supper, when I heard several steps entering the hall. It was too late to retreat, so I sprang into the room; and recollecting that a curtain had befriended me once before, I ran behind one which I saw there.
Instantly afterwards the persons entered. They were spruce footmen, bringing in supper. Not a scowl, not a mustachio amongst them.
As soon as the covers were laid, a crowd of company came laughing into the room; but, friend of my bosom, fancy, just fancy my revulsion of soul, my dismay, my disgust, my bitter indignation—oh! how shall I describe to you half what I felt, when I recognised these wretches, as they entered one by one, to be the identical gang who had visited me the day before, as heroes and heroines! I knew them instantly, though they looked twice as young; and in the midst of them all, as blithe as larks, came Betterton himself and Lord Altamont Mortimer Montmorenci! My heart died at the sight.
After they had seated themselves, Betterton (who sat at the head, and therefore was master) desired one of the servants to bring in 'the crazed poet.' And now two footmen appeared, carrying between them a large meal-bag, filled with Higginson; which they placed to the table, on a vacant seat. The bag was fastened at the top, and a slit was on the side of it.
The wretches then began to banter him, and bade him put forth his head; but he would neither move nor speak. At last they turned the conversation to me.
'I wonder can he be ghosting her all this time?' said Betterton.
'Well,' cried the fellow who had personated Sir Charles Grandison, 'I ought to have played the ghost, I am so much taller than he.'
'Not unless you could act it better than you did Grandison,' said the late Lady Sympathina. 'No, no, I was the person who performed my part well;—pouring a vial of hot water down her neck, by way of tears; and frightening her out of her senses by talking of a face like a pumpkin!'
'Nay,' cried my Lord Montmorenci, 'the best piece of acting you ever saw was when I first met her at the theatre, and persuaded her that Abraham Grundy was Lord Altamont Mortimer Montmorenci.'
'Except,' said Betterton, 'when I played old Whylome Eftsoones, at the masquerade, and made her believe that Cherry Wilkinson was Lady Cherubina De Willoughby.'