'Very well,' said Miss Montressor; 'I will look out for the blue velvet and the guipure, for the gold ornaments, and the blue-and-gold fan.'
A timepiece rang out the hour.
'Dear me, how late it is!' said Mrs. Jenkins. 'I had no notion I had been here so long. I think I must go now, Clara; but I shall get down to see you again before long, and you will come to see me, won't you?'
'My dear Bess, what are you thinking of?' replied her sister. 'How do you suppose I am to keep the secret, which you see I cannot help keeping? It is not unkindness and it is not snobbishness; it is only for the sake of the interests which I cannot afford to throw over. If I am seen going to Mrs. Griswold's house to visit Mrs. Griswold's nurse, why, if she didn't find it out, as I suppose she need not--no doubt I could always see you in a room to ourselves--just fancy how the servants would talk. There is not one in New York, I suppose, by this time who does not know my face; and it would be all over the place in a few hours. No, no you must come and see me when you can. It is muck safer, and just as easy.'
'I really think you might let me tell Mrs. Griswold,' said Mrs. Jenkins; 'you have no notion how kind she is, and how free from nonsense and pretence of all sorts. Her heart would be touched if I told her how we two were left poor motherless children to the care of our old aunt, who pushed us out into the world when we were almost babies, to do the best we could each for ourselves, and how you did the best, and it was very good, and I did--well, not quite the worst after all.'
A sweet smile, though sad, passed over the frank features of the speaker, a spark of the ever-burning lamp of life within her, that light which glorified even so mean an object as Ephraim Jenkins.
'Good Heavens,' thought Miss Montressor, 'she actually believes in that vagabond still, and is as fond of him as ever; she is perfectly incorrigible!' She did not give utterance to these sentiments, but took a most affectionate leave of her sister, even bestowing some transient expressions of admiration upon little Mary Griswold, who was wide awake by this time, and staring about her with a greedy curiosity which succeeds the first stages of stolid indifference incidental to babyhood. She did not kiss the child, she was not quite equal to that--Mrs. Jenkins wondered how she could deny herself the indulgence--but she patted her and chirped to her, and sent her sister away delighted with her amiability and her affability.
How hard it was for Bess to keep from talking of her visit when she went to assist at Mrs. Griswold's evening toilette nobody but Bess knew. When Mrs. Griswold had gone down-stairs, and driven away in the carriage which her friends had brought to fetch her, arrayed and looking very handsome in the pale blue velvet gown, with the guipure trimming, in the gold ornaments, and carrying her blue-and-gold fan, Mrs. Jenkins indemnified herself for the unnatural restraint by talking rapturously to the baby.
An enormous crowd of well-dressed people was flocking into Van Buren's Varieties, to the great delight of Mr. Van Buren himself, who stood at the checktaker's wicket, with his friend Mr. Morris Jacobs by his side. Mr. Van Buren had that amount of vanity which is inseparable from the theatrical profession, and to see himself recognised by members of the crowd, to hear the flattering remarks made on his personal appearance and his histrionic talents, rendered him supremely happy. Mr. Jacobs, who had no pretensions to manly beauty, being a short stout man, with an enormous head and an exaggerated Jewish cast of countenance, contented himself with silently counting the people as they came in, and keeping a wary eye upon the checktaker. It was a long time since the Varieties had boasted such an audience; every seat was taken, and the large lobbies at the back of the circles were inconveniently crowded. There was scarcely one in the many-sided phases of New York society which was not represented. The journals had done their work so well, and Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Jacobs had worked their various agencies with such success, that a desire to see the English actress and renew acquaintance with the handsome tragedian had been generated amongst people who had not visited the theatre for years. Good old Knickerbocker families, prouder of the 'Van' before their names than of the enormous fortunes which had accrued to them from the sale of the lands which had once formed the gardens and grounds of their old red-brick houses, and which now formed avenues and streets in the most fashionable districts; steady church-goers, whose wildest idea of dissipation was attendance at a lecture or a mass meeting; men who passed their days in Wall-street, and their evenings at the extemporised exchange in the hall of the Fifth-avenue Hotel--all these classes seemed to have caught the infection, and were largely represented. The regular attendants at theatrical representations--the club men, Fifth-avenue families, the people who wished to be thought 'in the style,' and whose newly-gotten wealth has made of them a plutocracy as imperious, as intolerant, and as hollow as any aristocracy in the Old World--all these were in fullest force. Such a reunion was seldom to be seen at so late a period; and the buzzing conversation of friends which took place before the commencement of the play was not, as usual, about the balls and entertainments to which they were invited, but treated rather of their intended summer flights; the various merits of style at Saratoga, rural quiet at Lake George, boisterous frivolity at Long Branch, or sea breezes at Newport being fully discussed.
Behind the scenes, too, there was very great excitement. Bryan Duval knew exactly the kind of audience he might expect to welcome his return and Miss Montressor's first appearance; he knew that on such an occasion his appeal ought to be made rather to the sympathies than the intelligence of the people; and so, reserving for a further occasion Romeo and Juliet, and other specimens of poetical drama in which he knew that he and Miss Montressor could help each other largely, and make themselves appreciated by the critical and the educated, he had determined upon commencing his campaign with the celebrated Irish drama, Cruiskeen Lawn. The American version of this play--it underwent considerable modification when acted in the United Kingdom--contained a goodly amount of treasonable speeches, denunciation of British kings and British government, and therefore greatly acceptable to that portion of the New York population which made their entry into America through the fair haven of Castle Garden; the dialogue, too, was sprinkled with numerous tropes and metaphors which Bryan had carefully culled from Tom Moore's poetical works. When there is to be added to this that it gave scope for pretty scenery, quaint coquettish peasant dresses for Miss Montressor, much love-making, and various astonishing feats, such as diving down a well and rushing through a blazing cottage, for Mr. Duval himself, it was evident that those who loved sensation were likely to be gratified.