A title had been given to the opera which had hitherto prevented all suspicion of its parentage; and the overture and opening, in which the music had been regular and sweet, had led the audience to fancy they detected the genius of their favourite Paisiello.

Long accustomed to ridicule and almost to despise the pretensions of Pisani as a composer, they now felt as if they had been unduly cheated into the applause with which they had hailed the overture and the commencing scenas.

An ominous buzz circulated round the house: the singers, the orchestra,--electrically sensitive to the impression of the audience,--grew, themselves, agitated and dismayed, and failed in the energy and precision which could alone carry off the grotesqueness of the music.
There are always in every theatre many rivals to a new author and a new performer,--a party impotent while all goes well, but a dangerous ambush the instant some accident throws into confusion the march of success.

A hiss arose; it was partial, it is true, but the significant silence of all applause seemed to forebode the coming moment when the displeasure would grow contagious.

It was the breath that stirred the impending avalanche.