Lord Liftore was anything but the Ferdinand to whom he could consent
to yield his Miranda. They would make a fine couple certainly, but for
any other fitness, knowing what he did, Malcolm was glad to perceive
none. The more annoyed was he when once or twice he fancied he caught
a look between them that indicated more than acquaintanceship--
some sort of intimacy at least. But he reflected that in the relation
in which they stood to Lady Bellair it could hardly be otherwise.

The play was tolerably well put upon the stage, and free of the
absurdities attendant upon too ambitious an endeavour to represent to
the sense things which Shakspere and the dramatists of his period
freely committed to their best and most powerful ally, the willing
imagination of the spectators. The opening of the last scene,
where Ferdinand and Miranda are discovered at chess, was none the
less effective for its simplicity, and Malcolm was turning from a
delighted gaze at its loveliness to glance at his sister and her
companions, when his eyes fell on a face near him in the pit which
had fixed an absorbed regard in the same direction. It was that of
a man a few years older than himself, with irregular features, but
a fine mouth, large chin; and great forehead. Under the peculiarly
prominent eyebrows shone dark eyes of wondrous brilliancy and seeming
penetration. Malcolm could not but suspect that his gaze was upon
his sister, but as they were a long way from the boxes, he could
not be certain. Once he thought he saw her look at him, but of that
also he could be in no wise certain.

He knew the play so well that he rose just in time to reach the
pit door ere exit should be impeded with the outcomers, and thence
with some difficulty he found his way to the foot of the stair up which
those he watched had gone. There he had stood but a little while,