Soon after I had got into these lodgings, I sent the servant to Grosvenor Square, with a message for Betterton, requesting him to let me have back the bandbox, which I left at his house the night I fled from him. In a short time she returned with it, and I found every article safe.

To my amazement and dismay, who should enter my apartment this morning but Betterton himself! I dropped my book. He bowed to the dust.

'Your business, Sir?' said I, rising with a dignity, which, from my being under the repeated necessity of assuming it, has now become natural to me.

'To make a personal apology,' replied he, 'for the disrespectful and inhospitable treatment which the loveliest of her sex experienced at my house.'

'An apology for one insult,' said I, 'must seem insincere, when the mode adopted for making it is another insult.'

'The retort is exquisitely elegant,' answered he, 'but I trust, not true. For, granting, my dear Madam, that I offer a second insult by my intrusion, still I may lessen the first insult so much by my apology that the sum of both may be less than the first, as it originally stood.'

'Really,' said I, 'you have blended politeness and arithmetic so happily together; you have clothed multiplication and subtraction in such polished phraseology——'

'Good!' cried he, 'that is real wit.'

'You have added so much algebra to so much sentiment,' continued I.

'Good, good!' interrupted he again.

'In short, you have apologized so gracefully by the rule of three, that I know not which has assisted you the most—Chesterfield or Cocker.'

'Inimitable,' exclaimed he. 'Really your retorting powers are superior to those of any heroine on record.'

In short, my friend, I was so delighted with my repartee, that I could not, for my life, continue vexed with the object of it; and before he left me, I said the best things in nature, found him the most agreeable old man in the world, shook hands with him at parting, and gave him permission to visit me again.

On calm consideration, I do not disapprove of my having allowed him this liberty. Were he merely a good kind of good for nothing old gentleman, it would only be losing time to cultivate an acquaintance with him. But as the man is a reprobate, I may find account in enlisting him amongst the other characters; particularly, since I am at present miserably off for villains. Indeed, I augur auspiciously of his powers, from the fact (which he confessed), of his having discovered my place of abode, by following the maid, when she was returning with my bandbox.

But I have to inform you of another rencontre.

Last night, the landlady, Higginson, and myself, went to see his lordship perform in the new Spectacle. The first piece was called a melodrama; a compound of horror and drollery, where scenery, dresses, and decorations, prevailed over nature, genius, and moral. As to the plot, I could make nothing of it; only that the hero and heroine were in very great trouble about trifles, and quite at their ease in real distress. For instance, when the heroine had arrived at the height of her misery, she began to sing. Then the hero, resolving to revenge her wrongs, falls upon one knee, turns up his eyes, and calls on the sacred majesty of God to assist him. This invocation to the Divinity might, perhaps, prove the hero's piety, but I am afraid it shewed the poet's want of any. Certainly, however, it produced a powerful effect on my feelings. I heard the glory of God made subservient to a theatrical clap-trap, and my blood ran cold. So, I fancy, did the blood of six or seven sweet little children behind the scenes, for they were presently sent upon the stage, to warm themselves with a dance. After dancing, came murder, and the hero gracefully advanced with a bullet in his head. He falls; and many well-meaning persons suppose that the curtain will fall with him. No such thing: Hector had a funeral, and so must Kemble. Accordingly the corpse appears, handsomely dished up on an escutcheoned coffin; while certain virgins of the sun (who, I am told, support that character better than their own), chaunt a holy requiem round it. When horror was exhausted, the poet tried disgust.

After this piece came another, full of bannered processions, gilded pillars, paper snows, and living horses, that were really far better actors than the men who rode them. It concluded with a grand battle, in which twenty men on horseback, and twenty on foot, beat each other indiscriminately, and with the utmost good humour. Armour clashed, sabres struck fire, a castle was burnt to the ground, horses fell dead, the audience rose shouting and clapping, and a man just below me in the pit, cried out in an ecstasy, 'I made their saddles! I made their saddles!'

As to Montmorenci's performance, nothing could equal it; for though his character was the meanest in the piece, he contrived to make it the most prominent. He had an emphasis for every word, an attitude for every emphasis, and a look for every attitude. The people, indeed, hissed him repeatedly, because they knew not, as I did, that his acting a broken soldier in the style of a dethroned monarch, proceeded from his native nobility of soul, not his want of talent.

After the performance, we were pressing through the crowd in the lobby, when I saw, as I thought, Stuart (Bob Stuart!), at a short distance from me, looking anxiously about him. On nearer inspection, I found I was right, and it occurred to me, that I might extract a most interesting scene from him, besides laying a foundation for future incident. I therefore separated myself (like Evelina at the Opera) from my party, and contrived to cross his path. At first he did not recognize me, but I continued by his side till he did.

'Miss Wilkinson!' exclaimed he, 'how rejoiced I am to see you! Where is your father?'

'Let us leave this place,' said I, 'they are searching for me, I know they are.'

'Who?' said he.

'Hush!' whispered I. 'Conduct me in silence from the theatre.'

He put my hand under his arm, and hurried me away. When we had gained the street:

'You may perceive by my lameness,' said he, 'that I am not yet well of the wound I received the night I met you on the Common. But I could not refrain from accompanying your father to Town, in search of you; and as I heard nothing of him since he went to your lodgings yesterday, I called there myself this evening, and was told that you had gone to the theatre. They could give me no information about your father, but of course, you have seen him since he came to Town.'

'I have not, I assure you,' said I, an evasive, yet conscientious answer, because Wilkinson is not my real father.

'That is most extraordinary,' cried he, 'for he left the hotel yesterday, to call on you. But tell me candidly, Miss Wilkinson, what tempted you to leave home? How are you situated at present? with whom? and what is your object?'

'Alas!' said I, 'a horrible mystery hangs over me, which I dare not now develop. It is enough, that in flying from one misfortune, I have plunged into a thousand others, that peace has fled from my heart, and that I am ruined.'

'Ruined!' exclaimed he, with a look of horror.

'Past redemption,' said I, hiding my face in my hands.

'This will be dreadful news for your poor father,' said he. 'But I beg of you to tell me the particulars.'

'Then to be brief,' answered I, 'the first night I came to Town, a gentleman decoyed me into his house, and treated me extremely ill.'

'The villain!' muttered Stuart.

'Afterwards I left him,' continued I, 'and walked the streets, till I was taken up for a robbery, and put into the watchhouse.'

'Is this fact?' asked Stuart, 'or are you merely sporting with my feelings?'

''Tis fact, on my honour,' said I, 'and to conclude my short, but pathetic tale, a gentleman, a mysterious and amiable youth, met me by mere accident, after my release; and I am, at present, under his protection.'

'A shocking account indeed!' said he. 'But have you never considered the consequences of continuing this abandoned course of life?'

'Now here is a pretty insinuation!' cried I; 'but such is always the fate of us poor heroines. No, never can we get through an innocent adventure in peace and quietness, without having our virtue called in question. 'Tis always our virtue, our virtue. If we are caught coming out of a young man's bed-room,—'tis our virtue. If we remain a whole night in the streets,—'tis our virtue. If we make a nocturnal assignation,—Oh! 'tis our virtue, our virtue. Such a rout as they make.'

'I regret,' said Stuart, 'to see you treat the subject so lightly, but I do beseech of you to recollect, that your wretched parent——'

''Tis a fine night, Sir.'

'That your wretched parent——'

'Sir,' said I, 'when spleen takes the form of remonstrance, a lecture is only a scolding put into good language. This is my house, Sir.' And I stopped at the door.

'At least,' said he, 'will you do me the favour of being at home for me to-morrow morning?'

'Perhaps I may,' replied I. 'So good night, master Bobby!'

The poet and the landlady did not return for half an hour. They told me that their delay was occasioned by their search for me; but I refused all explanation as to what happened after I had lost them.

Adieu.