new and brighter future. Here is the narrative:

Her Majesty's Theater was crowded on the night of June 10,1843. A
new Spanish dancer was announced--"Dona Lola Montez." It was her
debut, and Lumley, the manager, had been puffing her beforehand,
as he alone knew how. To Lord Ranelagh, the leader of the
dilettante group of fashionable young men, he had whispered,
mysteriously:

"I have a surprise in store. You shall see."

So Ranelagh and a party of his friends filled the omnibus boxes,
those tribunes at the side of the stage whence success or failure
was pronounced. Things had been done with Lumley's consummate art;
the packed house was murmurous with excitement. She was a raving
beauty, said report--and then, those intoxicating Spanish dances!
Taglioni, Cerito, Fanny Elssler, all were to be eclipsed.

Ranelagh's glasses were steadily leveled on the stage from the
moment her entrance was imminent. She came on. There was a murmur
of admiration--but Ranelagh made no sign. And then she began to
dance. A sense of disappointment, perhaps? But she was very
lovely, very graceful, "like a flower swept by the wind, she
floated round the stage"--not a dancer, but, by George, a beauty!
And still Ranelagh made no sign.

Yet, no. What low, sibilant sound is that? And then what confused,
angry words from the tribunal? He turns to his friends, his eyes
ablaze with anger, opera-glass in hand. And now again the terrible
"Hiss-s-s!" taken up by the other box, and the words repeated