shan't master me. I will have my pleasure in spite of it, and when I come
across anything in life that makes me _feel_, I will protect my feeling
from it with all my might.'

'We are dumb,' said Kendal, with a smile; 'otherwise I would pedantically
ask you to consider what are the feelings to which the dramatic art
properly and legitimately appeals.'

'Oh, hang your dramatic art,' said Forbes, firing up; 'can't you take
things simply and straightforwardly? She is there--she is doing her best
for you--there isn't a movement or a look which isn't as glorious as that
of a Diana come to earth, and you won't let it charm you and conquer you,
because she isn't into the bargain as confoundedly clever as you are
yourselves! Well, it's your loss, not hers.'

'My dear Mr. Forbes,' said Mrs. Stuart, with her little judicial
peace-making air, 'we shall all go away contented. You will have had your
sensation, they will have had their sense of superiority, and, as for me,
I shall get the best of it all round. For, while you are here, I see Miss
Bretherton with your eyes, and yet, as Edward will get hold of me on the
way home, I shan't go to bed without having experienced all the joys of
criticism! Oh! but now hush, and listen to this music. It is one of the
best things in the evening, and we shall have the White Lady directly.'

As she spoke, the orchestra, which was a good one, and perhaps the most
satisfactory feature in the performance, broke into some weird
Mendelssohnian music, and when the note of plaintiveness and mystery had
been well established, the curtain rose upon the great armoury of the
castle, a dim indistinguishable light shining upon its fretted roof and
masses of faintly gleaming steel. The scene which followed, in which the