She could only look back at the days that were gone forever, and tell him the story of her first step toward the stage at Evergreen Lodge.

Captain Wragge listened with his usual politeness; but he evidently derived no satisfactory impression from what he heard.

Audiences of friends were audiences whom he privately declined to trust; and the opinion of the stage-manager was the opinion of a man who spoke with his fee in his pocket and his eye on a future engagement.
"Interesting, deeply interesting," he said, when Magdalen had done.
"But not conclusive to a practical man.

A specimen of your abilities is necessary to enlighten me.

I have been on the stage myself; the comedy of the Rivals is familiar to me from beginning to end.