"No matter what Stephen may say to-night, I'm going to dress you to suit myself," said Miss Emmy. "This pink brocade with the silver trimmings, your hair loosened into a crown of puffs with the pink feather at the side, and the coral comb. The coral necklace and the white lace shawl for shoulder drapery, if you think low neck a trifle too much for a clergyman's lady, and these white gloves topped with coral bands."
"I will wear the white gloves gladly," said Jeanne Latimer, looking at her two forefingers rather ruefully. One was roughened by the use of the vegetable knife, for the times had been hard and houseworkers scarce at Harley's Mills that winter; while the other was pricked deep from the sewing of harsh muslin for the clothing that some would otherwise have lacked. "But really, Miss Emmy, don't you think it would look more honest if I wore my own gown?"
Miss Emmy laughingly acknowledged that perhaps it might, yet held her point with determination, and eight o'clock saw the party of six gathered in the opera-box, their faces differing almost as much in expression as the details of their clothing.
Jeanne Latimer and Miss Emmy were what might be called very much dressed without having overstepped the bounds of good taste. Miss Emmy wore pale blue satin with much fine lace and pearl ornaments; though pale in the morning, her color always grew somewhat hectic at night and helped justify a combination by far too young for her years.
While Jeanne Latimer enjoyed the novel sensation of wearing her gay attire, Miss Emmy's pleasure came from the conscious result of wearing hers. Miss Felton, who sat behind her sister, wore an almost straight robe of black velvet; the point lace fichu crossed in front and fastened by a heavy diamond brooch, her only ornament, covered all but her slim white throat. Her hair was parted in bandeaux and coiled at the back of her head as usual, the only addition being two waxy white camelias tucked into the mass. During the last two years, however, a decided thread of silver had woven itself among the dark coils. Talking in short sentences to, rather than with, Mr. Esterbrook, who sat next her, she had an anxious air and seemed to be striving to keep him awake, for scarcely had they been seated when an air of intense weariness came over his elaborately dressed person, and he began to nod.
The remaining two of the party thus had the right-hand corner of the box to themselves, Poppea, in her simple white summer muslin relieved by a cherry sash, sitting in a low chair, with Stephen Latimer back of her. From the moment of their entrance, he had busied himself in explaining the great building to her, from the arrangement of the seats, boxes, and orchestra, to the uses of the prompter's egg-shaped box. Music and certain phases of human nature that he felt allied to the Divine were the food for this man's dreams, and to-night he would have both very near.
Presently the orchestra took their places, falling into silence at the tap of the leader's baton and the prelude to the first act began with the high notes of the Grail motif, rising to a climax of trumpets and trombones, then fading away to silence again. With a word here and there to focus the story of the libretto, Latimer called Poppea's attention to the new theme, where the Herald calls for a champion for the accused girl, the Elsa motif is voiced by the wood-wind instruments, and presently Lohengrin appears in the boat drawn by the swan.
To Poppea the scene had the mystery of fairyland, but it was, at the same time, her first glimpse of visible active romance, and through the scenes that followed came her primal realization of the love of man and woman as separate from the friendship of girl and boy.
When Lohengrin sets the one condition for the marriage that Elsa shall never ask him his name and Latimer explained the Mystery of the Name motif, Poppea with hands clasped in the folds of her gown sat with strained eyes and parted lips scarcely breathing. Once heard, this motif never left her ears, whether it was whispered by the wood-wind instruments, the horn, or proclaimed by the whole orchestra, as when in the scene of the bridal chamber the knight calls Elsa passionately by name, but she, not knowing his, may not speak it, and so at last rebels and demands to know.
As Latimer watched Poppea's face, he saw the change that fell upon it. The joy of music, color, and pageant faded from it, until, finally, when the boat, now guided by the Dove of the Grail, bears Lohengrin, its knight, away and Elsa falls fainting, he saw Poppea's lips, from which the color had fled, frame rather than say:—