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 another.