The pit thrilled and thumped its umbrellas; a volley of applause was
fired from the gallery: the Dragoon officers and Foker clapped their
hands furiously: you would have thought the house was full, so loud were
their plaudits. The red face and ragged whiskers of Mr. Costigan were
seen peering from the side-scene. Pen's eyes opened wide and bright as
Mrs. Haller entered with a downcast look, then rallying at the sound of
the applause, swept the house with a grateful glance, and, folding her
hands across her breast, sank down in a magnificent curtsey. More
applause, more umbrellas; Pen this time, flaming with wine and
enthusiasm, clapped hands and sang "bravo" louder than all. Mrs. Haller
saw him, and everybody else, and old Mr. Bows, the little first fiddler
of the orchestra (which was this night increased by a detachment of the
band of the Dragoons, by the kind permission of Colonel Swallowtail),
looked up from the desk where he was perched, with his crutch beside him,
and smiled at the enthusiasm of the lad.

Those who have only seen Miss Fotheringay in later days, since her
marriage and introduction into London life, have little idea how
beautiful a creature she was at the time when our friend Pen first set
eyes on her: and I warn my reader, as beforehand, that the pencil which
illustrates this work (and can draw an ugly face tolerably well, but is
sadly put out when it tries to delineate a beauty) can give no sort of
notion of her. She was of the tallest of women, and at her then age of
six-and-twenty-for six-and-twenty she was, though she vows she was only
nineteen--in the prime and fulness of her beauty. Her forehead was vast,
and her black hair waved over it with a natural ripple (that beauties of
late days have tried to imitate with the help of the crimping-irons), and
was confined in shining and voluminous braids at the back of a neck such
as you see on the shoulders of the Louvre Venus--that delight of gods and