Lady Flora was placed near the edge of the box, as this was her first visit to the opera. She held me in her arms with my head hanging a little over the edge. Oh, how frightened I was, as I looked down! The height was dreadful! There were indeed many rows above us, but there were two below us, and it looked a terrible distance down into the crowd at the bottom. ‘Oh,’ cried I to myself, ‘if my mamma would but hold me tighter—I am so frightened!’
Well, the opera commenced, and it was very long. My little lady mamma got quite tired and sleepy before it was half over, and continually asked when the dancing would begin. But the opera still went on, and I saw with alarm that her eyes grew very heavy, and every now and then were shut.
I Fell Straight Into It!
I saw in another box very near us another little lady of about my mamma’s age, who had an opera glass in her hand, and was also leaning over the edge of the box; and I thought, ‘Now if that small lady drops the opera glass upon the head of some gentleman below in the pit, it will only knock a bit of his head off; but if my small lady drops me, I shall be knocked all to pieces!’
I had scarcely finished this reflection when, to my indescribable alarm, I felt the hand that held me get looser and looser. Lady Flora was fast asleep!
What feelings, what thoughts, were mine at that moment I cannot say, for everything within me seemed mingled in confusion with everything that was round me, and I did not know one thing from another. The hand that held me got still looser!
Oh, dear me!—how shall I proceed? It was a moment, as the poet Henry Chorley observes—
‘When all that’s feeble squeaks within the soul!’
The next moment I felt all was over with me! The hand of my sleeping mamma opened—and down, down I fell into the dark pit below!