Cashel Byron's Profession

This time Mrs. Byron said nothing about detesting the stage. She had

really detested it once; but by the time she was rich enough to give

up the theatre she had worn that feeling out, and had formed a habit

of acting which was as irksome to shake off as any other habit. She

also found a certain satisfaction in making money with ease and

certainty, and she made so much that at last she began to trifle

with plans of retirement, of playing in Paris, of taking a theatre

in London, and other whims. The chief public glory of her youth had

been a sudden triumph in London on the occasion of her first

appearance on any stage; and she now felt a mind to repeat this and

crown her career where it had begun. So she accepted the manager's

offer, and even went the length of reading the play of "King John"

in order to ascertain what it was all about.

The work of advertisement followed her assent. Portraits of Adelaide

Gisborne were displayed throughout the town. Paragraphs in the

papers mentioned large sums as the cost of mounting the historical

masterpiece of the national bard. All the available seats in the

theatre--except some six or seven hundred in the pit and

gallery--were said to be already disposed of for the first month of

the expected run of the performance. The prime minister promised to

be present on the opening night. Absolute archaeologic accuracy was

promised. Old paintings were compared to ascertain the dresses of

the period. A scene into which the artist had incautiously painted a

pointed arch was condemned as an anachronism. Many noblemen gave the

actor-manager access to their collections of armor and weapons in

order that his accoutrement should exactly counterfeit that of a

Norman baron. Nothing remained doubtful except the quality of the

acting.

It happened that one of the most curious documents of the period in

question was a scrap of vellum containing a fragment of a chronicle

of Prince Arthur, with an illuminated portrait of his mother. It had

been purchased for a trifling sum by the late Mr. Carew, and was now

in the possession of Lydia, to whom the actor-manager applied for

leave to inspect it. Leave being readily given, he visited the house

in Regent's Park, which he declared to be an inexhaustible

storehouse of treasure. He deeply regretted, he said, that he could

not show the portrait to Miss Gisborne. Lydia replied that if Miss

Gisborne would come and look at it, she should be very welcome. Two

days later, at noon, Mrs. Byron arrived and found Lydia alone; Alice

having contrived to be out, as she felt that it was better not to

meet an actress--one could never tell what they might have been.