When the curtain fell upon that group of slaughtered personages, who are
despatched so suddenly at the end of 'Hamlet,' and whose demise
astonished poor little Laura not a little, there was an immense shouting
and applause from all quarters of the house; the intrepid Smirke,
violently excited, clapped his hands, and cried out "Bravo, Bravo," as
loud as the Dragoon officers themselves. These were greatly moved,--ils
s'agitaient sur leurs bancs,--to borrow a phrase from our neighbours.
They were led cheering into action by the portly Swallowtail, who waved
his cap--the non-commissioned officers in the pit, of course, gallantly
following their chiefs. There was a roar of bravos rang through the
house; Pen bellowing with the loudest, "Fotheringay! Fotheringay!" and
Messrs. Spavin and Foker giving the view-halloo from their box. Even Mrs.
Pendennis began to wave about her pocket-handkerchief, and little Laura
danced, laughed, clapped, and looked up at Pen with wonder.

Hornbull led the beneficiaire forward, amidst bursts of enthusiasm--and
she looked so handsome and radiant, with her hair still over her
shoulders, that Pen hardly could contain himself for rapture: and he
leaned over his mother's chair, and shouted, and hurrayed, and waved his
hat. It was all he could do to keep his secret from Helen, and not say,
"Look! That's the woman! Isn't she peerless? I tell you I love her." But
he disguised these feelings under an enormous bellowing and hurraying.

As for Miss Fotheringay and her behaviour, the reader is referred to a
former page for an account of that. She went through precisely the same
business. She surveyed the house all round with glances of gratitude; and
trembled, and almost sank with emotion, over her favourite trap-door. She
seized the flowers (Foker discharged a prodigious bouquet at her, and
even Smirke made a feeble shy with a rose, and blushed dreadfully when it