Helen Nanna, a good, kind girl and high up in the class at Old Dame Nature's Select Academy for Young Ladies, handed the programme to Uncle Philip, who perused the same as soon as the vibrations under the chocolate waistcoat would allow him to do so.
"Birdie Brightwing—no, she's Prince Charming, and this is Cinderella. Mary Caspar is Cinderella."
Uncle Philip, for all his ripe experience, had never heard of Miss Caspar, and Father hadn't either. Never been seen at the Gaiety or the Lyric. No wonder a star had had to be placed by the Management opposite the name of Miss Caspar to denote an explanatory footnote at the bottom of the programme.
"By special arrangement with the Royal Italian Opera House, Blackhampton."
Ha! that explained it. Deep minds were in this. Merely one more stroke of genius on the part of Mr. Hollins. When Florence de Vere had broken her engagement at the eleventh hour in order to take part in the Beauchamp Season, to the dismay of all that was best in the life of the metropolis, what did Mr. Hollins do? Sit down and twiddle his thumbs, did he? Not so, my masters. He called for his coat with the beaver collar, and his new bowler hat from Mr. Lock, and he took a first-class ticket for the Royal Italian Opera House, Blackhampton.
