comedian _par excellence_ of the English stage, for which eminence
nature and art had alike qualified him by the imperturbable gravity of
his extraordinarily ugly face, which was such an irresistibly comical
element in his broadest and most grotesque performances, Mr. Liston used
to exert his ludicrous powers of tormenting his fellow-actors in the
most cruel manner upon that sweet singer, Miss Stephens (afterward
Countess of Essex). She had a curious nervous trick of twitching her
dress before she began to sing; this peculiarity was well known to all
her friends, and Liston, who certainly was one of them, used to agonize
the poor woman by standing at the side scene, while the symphony of her
pathetic ballads was being played, and indicating by his eyes and
gestures that something was amiss with the trimming or bottom of her
dress; when, as invariably as he chose to play the trick, poor Miss
Stephens used to begin to twitch and catch at her petticoat, and half
hysterical, between laughing and crying, would enchant and entrance her
listeners with her exquisite voice and pathetic rendering of "Savourneen
Deelish" or "The Banks of Allan Water."




CHAPTER II.


Two young men, officers of a militia regiment, became admirers of the
two young country actresses: how long an acquaintance existed before the
fact became evident that they were seriously paying their addresses to
the girls, I do not know; nor how long the struggle lasted between pride
and conventional respectability on the part of the young men's families
and the pertinacity of their attachment.