Rosa Campbell Praed

“ Ah! Bah! It is good for an artist to be in lofe. Make yourself in lofe, Mees Beatrice."
"But, Signor Miravoglia, I have tried and quite unsuccessfully. I have done my very best to fall in love with each of the heroes at each one of the plays which I have gone to see in London, and all in vain. There is not one among them who gives me an emotion—except, perhaps, Cosway Keele."
"Ah! Cosway Keele!" echoed Miravoglia, contemptuously. "He is not bad, but 'e is too old, and besides——No, Cosway Keele will not do. ”

“ Cubison would have put it, the "influences" were propitious, when she astonished them at rehearsal and sent Cosway Keele away from the Dionysion under the conviction that he was about to introduce to the world a new Rachel. On the whole things went merrily at the Dionysion, and some doubts which had been felt as to the suitability of such a piece for the modern stage subsided. Lendon had cut out all the rough phraseology of a play which, but for the out-spoken language of the time, not then thought harm by woman or man, is pure as newly-congealed ice. ”

“ Yes—she has so great a soul that she has lifted the very waiting-woman into a comprehension of it! Shall I ever be able to put all my full sense of her love and her nobleness and her courage into words? ”

“ So she sang a German song after a fashion that called forth a "Brava!" from Miravoglia, and that touched Lendon to the very depths of his heart. It was wonderful that so strong and rich a voice should come from that fragile frame. It was very sweet, too, and had a pathos which he thought he had never heard equalled.
When she had finished, Miravoglia swung himself round on the music-stool and cut short Lendon's thanks. "She will do," he cried; "but she is nervous. No matter!—zere never was an artist who was not nervous. I believe in 'er. Remember, Mees Beatrice, what I tell you. ”

“ Zere never was an artist who did not lofe; and zen," he added, consolingly, "she will sing from the bottom of 'er very big 'eart," And with this prophecy Miravoglia bundled up his music and departed.
Lendon remembered the little scene, and Beatrice's flush, and her shy laugh when Miravoglia had gone and they were atone, and how she had abruptly turned the conversation and had there and then selected her visit to the studio this very day. ”

“ You are a worker. Workers must eat."
"I know that, Signor," said Beatrice meekly. "Tell me, do you take such good care of all your pupils?"
"Not of all, not of all," and he looked at Lendon as he tapped himself knowingly on the chest; "but I have somesing 'ere to take care of—somesing zat will do great sings."
"The reason why Signor Miravoglia is so popular with his pupils is that he pays them all such nice sugary compliments," said Beatrice, teasingly, turning to Lendon. ”

“ He had shortened the play and made it end with the death of the sweet, sad, wronged heroic Duchess, the doomed victim of a brother's hate and treachery. Never was woman more truly moulded for happiness and joy and love, more sweetly, purely passionate in her love. ”

“ I have a headache. I can't stay here any longer. Mr. Lendon will go behind and explain to Cosway Keele, and thank him for us."
Mrs. Cubison got up obediently, and Lendon took them down and saw them into a cab. The mission entrusted to him obliged him to sit out the performance. As he went back to the theatre he met Sir Donald and Countess Adrian coming out. She stopped and spoke to him.
"So your Improvisatrice, like myself, is bored with Cosway Keele?"
"She is tired and not very well," replied Lendon, "and like yourself, probably, she has seen the play before." ”

“ Just as the new Dionysion production had been decided upon—a Shakespearean comedy—and the scenic artists and the authorities on historic costume and furniture, whose services the theatre retained, were torturing their brains to produce an effect that should beat even the Dionysion record, the leading lady fell suddenly and dangerously ill and threw all the Dionysion arrangements into chaos. ”

“ Cosway Keele—for he was this actor-manager—had, as has been told, seen Beatrice Brett's performance at Mrs. Walcot Valbry's, and had been much struck by its extraordinary power and originality. He had long contemplated the revival of Webster's tragedy, he himself playing the part of Bosola, but had declared over and over again to his intimates that he knew no living actress capable of personating the ill-fated Duchess. Beatrice had impressed him strangely. "I think I see my Duchess at last," he said to Lendon that very night at Mrs. ”

“ CHAPTER V. Tea in the Studio. Lendon's studio was situated in the artistic colony of Chelsea. He had built himself a low red-brick house after all the approved canons. His fortune was sufficiently large to enable him to gratify a mild passion for bric-à-brac. He had some very good china and a quantity of fine tapestry, and his collection of old prints was famous. The studio itself was a homelike place ”