"O, no, dear mother!" replied Juliet, "I know you wish to see aunt Wilmar: I am sure my tea will relieve my headache, and I have no doubt, when I have drunk it, I shall feel well enough to rise, and sit up all the evening." Accordingly, after Juliet had taken her tea, she rose and adjusted her dress, and when Mrs. Lansdowne came up again, she found her daughter sitting by the fire with a book, and apparently so much recovered, that she felt no scruples about leaving her, as she was really desirous of passing the evening with Mrs. Wilmar, who was confined to the house with the influenza.
At last Juliet heard her father and mother depart, and Edward went out soon after. In a few minutes, Madeline came cautiously up stairs, and glided into the chamber, carrying a large bundle. "All's safe," said she, "the coast is quite clear, and we have not a moment to lose. It is a fine moonlight night."
Juliet's courage now failed entirely; and she vehemently besought Madeline to give up a scheme fraught with so much risk and impropriety. But Madeline was immovable, declaring that she had set her heart on it, and that she enjoyed nothing so much as what she called an out-of-the-way frolic. "Since you are so cowardly, Juliet," said she, "I wish I could venture to go alone; but wild as I am, I confess I am not quite equal to that—Come, now, off with your frock, and get yourself dressed in these delectable habiliments."
She then began to unfasten Juliet's dress, who pale, trembling, and with tears in her eyes, arrayed herself in the clothes that Madeline had brought for her. The gown was a very dirty one of dark blue domestic gingham, and she put on with it a yellowish chequered handkerchief, and a check apron. Over this she pinned an old red woollen shawl, and she covered her head with a coarse and broken black Leghorn bonnet. The clothes that Madeline had allotted to herself were a little better, consisting of a dark calico frock, a coarse tamboured muslin collar, an old straw bonnet very yellow and faded, and a plaid cloak which belonged to the cook, and which she had taken out of a closet in the garret.
The two young ladies did not know, or did not recollect, that when real servant-girls go to the theatre, they generally dress as well as they can, and take pains to appear to the best advantage. The clothes that Madeline had selected were quite too dirty and shabby for the occasion. To complete their costume, she gave Juliet a pair of coarse calf-skin shoes, which were so large that as she walked her feet seemed to rise up out of them. Madeline, for her part, put on a pair of carpet-moccasins over her slippers.
After they were dressed and ready to depart for the theatre, Juliet's tremor increased, and she was again on the point of relinquishing her share in the business; but she again yielded to the solicitations of Madeline, who led her softly down stairs by the light of the moon that shone in at the staircase windows. They stole, undiscovered, across the yard and out at the alley-gate; and finding themselves in the street, began to walk very fast, as people generally do when they are going to the play.
When they came in view of the theatre, they saw no persons there, except two or three gentlemen who went in at the pit-door. Juliet's heart failed entirely; and she shrank back as Madeline, taking her hand, attempted to pull her towards the door that admitted the gallery-people. "We have now gone too far to recede," whispered Madeline,—"You must stand by me now. I will not go back, and you must come forward. Here, take my money and put it down with yours—I forgot my gloves, and my hands will betray me, so I must keep them wrapped up in my cloak."
Juliet laid the money on the ledge before the doorkeeper, who looked at them with some surprise. They pulled their bonnets more closely over their faces, and passed up the stairs; Madeline running as fast as possible, and Juliet entreating her in a low voice to stop a little, as she could not keep pace with her. They soon found themselves in the gallery, and being assisted over the benches by a very polite black man, they took their seats among some coloured people about the centre of the middle row.
The crowd and heat were intolerable. Juliet kept her eyes cast down; afraid to look round the house, or even to steal a glance towards the stage. Madeline, however, looked round boldly, and in a few minutes, to her great consternation, she perceived Edward Lansdowne standing up in the back part of one of the stage-boxes. Having finished his novel, and feeling no inclination to read any more that night, he had concluded to go to the theatre, reminded of it by seeing the bill in the evening paper. "Juliet," whispered Madeline, "there is my evil genius." "Where, where?" exclaimed Juliet, thrown almost off her guard. "If we can distinguish him at so great a distance, he can also discover us."—"You forget," replied Madeline, "that we are in disguise." These words, though uttered in a whisper, were evidently heard by the people round, who all turned to look at them; and some tried to peep under their bonnets, which made Juliet draw hers down over her face till her sight was entirely obscured by it.
The play went on; but Madeline and Juliet could not enjoy it, all their attention being engaged by the continual fear of discovery. Juliet, however heard enough to convince her that her parents would never have taken her to see the Belle's Stratagem; as when they did indulge her with a visit to the theatre, they always selected a night when the play was unexceptionable, and the whole entertainment such as a young lady could witness with propriety.