virtuous attachment for a young lady of his own rank and with a
corresponding fortune--this present infatuation, of course, I must
deplore as sincerely as you do. If I were his guardian I should command
him to give it up."

"The very means, I tell you, to make him marry to-morrow. We have got
time from him, that is all, and we must do our best with that.

"I say, Major," said the Doctor, at the end of the conversation in which
the above subject was discussed--"I am not, of course, a play-going man--
but suppose, I say, we go and see her."

The Major laughed--he had been a fortnight at Fairoaks, and strange to
say, had not thought of that. "Well," he said, "why not? After all, it is
not my niece, but Miss Fotheringay the actress, and we have as good a
right as any other of the public to see her if we pay our money." So upon
a day when it was arranged that Pen was to dine at home, and pass the
evening with his mother, the two elderly gentlemen drove over to
Chatteris in the Doctor's chaise, and there, like a couple of jolly
bachelors, dined at the George Inn, before proceeding to the play.

Only two other guests were in the room,--an officer of the regiment
quartered at Chatteris, and a young gentleman whom the Doctor thought he
had somewhere seen. They left them at their meal, however, and hastened
to the theatre. It was Hamlet over again. Shakspeare was Article XL. of
stout old Doctor Portman's creed, to which he always made a point of
testifying publicly at least once in a year.

We have described the play before, and how those who saw Miss Fotheringay
perform in Ophelia saw precisely the same thing on one night as on