The crowd struggled for places in eager expectation, amid banter none too virtuous, whistlings and jostlings. The time for the play had arrived. “Nell! Nell! Nell!” was on every lip.
And who was “Nell”?
From amidst the players, lords and coxcombs crowded on the stage stepped forth Nell Gwyn–the prettiest rogue in merry England.
A cheer went up from every throat; for the little vixen who stood before them had long reigned in the hearts of Drury Lane and the habitués of the King’s House.
Yea, all eyes were upon the pretty, witty Nell; the one-time orange-girl; now queen of the theatre, and the idol of the Lane. Her curls were flowing and her big eyes dancing beneath a huge hat–more, indeed, a canopy than a hat–so large that the audience screamed with delight at the incongruity of it and the pretty face beneath.
This pace in foolery had been set at the Duke’s House, but Nell out-did them, with her broad-brimmed hat as large as a cart-wheel and her quaint waist-belt; for was not her hat larger by half than that at the rival house and her waist-belt quainter?
As she came forward to speak the prologue, her laugh too was merrier and more roguish:
“This jest was first of the other house’s making,
And, five times tried, has never fail’d of taking;
.......
This is that hat, whose very sight did win ye
To laugh and clap as though the devil were in ye,