next to ours, the only box that had remained empty, was thrown open, and in
poured an over-dressed party, whom _nobody knew_. Lady de Brantefield,
after one reconnoitring glance, pronounced them to be city Goths and
Vandals; and without resting her glass upon them for half a moment, turned
it to some more profitable field of speculation. There was no gentleman of
this party, but a portly matron, towering above the rest, seemed the
principal mover and orderer of the group. The awkward bustle they made,
facing and backing, placing and changing of places, and the difficulty they
found in seating themselves, were in striking contrast with the high-bred
ease of the ladies of our party. Lady Anne Mowbray looked down upon their
operations with a pretty air of quiet surprise, tinctured with horror;
while my mother's shrinking delicacy endeavoured to suggest some idea of
propriety to the city matron, who having taken her station next to us in
the second row, had at last seated herself so that a considerable portion
of the back part of her head-dress was in my mother's face: moreover, the
citizen's huge arm, with its enormous gauze cuff, leaning on the partition
which divided, or ought to have divided, her from us, considerably passed
the line of demarcation. Lady de Brantefield, with all the pride of all the
De Brantefields since the Norman Conquest concentrated in her countenance,
threw an excommunicating, withering look upon the arm--but the elbow felt
it not--it never stirred. The lady seemed not to be made of penetrable
stuff. In happy ignorance she sat fanning herself for a few seconds; then
suddenly starting and stretching forward to the front row, where five of
her young ladies were wedged, she aimed with her fan at each of their backs
in quick succession, and in a more than audible whisper asked, "Cecy! Issy!
Henny! Queeney! Miss Coates, where's Berry?"--All eyes turned to look for
Berry--"Oh! mercy, behind in the back row! Miss Berry, that must not be--
come forward, here's my place or Queeney's," cried Mrs. Coates, stretching
backwards with her utmost might to seize some one in the farthest corner of
the back row, who had hitherto been invisible. We expected to see in Miss