[*Footnote: I have not said "the pit," because the intruders of fashion
had not then been driven from the STAGE itself, especially between the
acts.]

At length, the play went on, and at the end of the second act a
slight movement enabled Lord Sherbrooke and Wilton to advance further
towards the stage, so that the latter was now nearly opposite to the
box in which one of the beauties of the day was seated. He
immediately turned in that direction, as did Lord Sherbrooke at the
same moment; and Wilton, with a feeling of pain that can scarcely be
described, beheld in the fair girl who seemed to be the unwilling
object of so much admiration, no other than the young lady whom he
had aided in rescuing when attacked, as we have before described, by
the gentry who in those days frequented so commonly the King's
Highway.

Though now dressed with splendour, as became her rank and station,
there was in her whole countenance the same simple unaffected look of
tranquil modesty which Wilton had remarked there before, and in which
he had fancied he read the story of a noble mind and a fine heart,
rather undervaluing than otherwise the external advantages of beauty
and station, but dignified and raised by the consciousness of purity,
cultivation, and high thoughts. The same look was there, modest yet
dignified, diffident yet self-possessed; and while he became
convinced that there sat the bride selected by the Earl of Byerdale
for his son, he was equally convinced that she was the person of all
others whose fate would be the most miserable in such an union.

At the same moment, too, his heart was moved by sensations that may be
very difficult accurately to describe. To talk of his being in love