At this distance of time, when I look back upon it my old blood leaps and burns.

I repeat, it was a glorious night! Before the curtain rose we had time to glance about us on that scene, to both entirely new--the inside of a theatre.

Shabby and small as the place was, it was filled with all the beau monde of Coltham, which then, patronized by royalty, rivalled even Bath in its fashion and folly.

Such a dazzle of diamonds and spangled turbans and Prince-of-Wales' plumes.

Such an odd mingling of costume, which was then in a transition state, the old ladies clinging tenaciously to the stately silken petticoats and long bodices, surmounted by the prim and decent bouffantes, while the younger belles had begun to flaunt in the French fashions of flimsy muslins, shortwaisted--narrow-skirted.