Concerning a young Lady from London, who joins the Company, and an elderly Admirer who follows in her Train; with an affecting Ceremony consequent on their Arrival  
The new piece being a decided hit, was announced for every evening of performance until further notice, and the evenings when the theatre was closed, were reduced from three in the week to two. Nor were these the only tokens of extraordinary success; for, on the succeeding Saturday, Nicholas received, by favour of the indefatigable Mrs. Grudden, no less a sum than thirty shillings; besides which substantial reward, he enjoyed considerable fame and honour: having a presentation copy of Mr. Curdle’s pamphlet forwarded to the theatre, with that gentleman’s own autograph (in itself an inestimable treasure) on the fly-leaf, accompanied with a note, containing many expressions of approval, and an unsolicited assurance that Mr. Curdle would be very happy to read Shakespeare to him for three hours every morning before breakfast during his stay in the town.
‘I’ve got another novelty, Johnson,’ said Mr. Crummles one morning in great glee.
‘What’s that?’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘The pony?’
‘No, no, we never come to the pony till everything else has failed,’ said Mr. Crummles. ‘I don’t think we shall come to the pony at all, this season. No, no, not the pony.’
‘A boy phenomenon, perhaps?’ suggested Nicholas.
‘There is only one phenomenon, sir,’ replied Mr. Crummles impressively, ‘and that’s a girl.’
‘Very true,’ said Nicholas. ‘I beg your pardon. Then I don’t know what it is, I am sure.’
‘What should you say to a young lady from London?’ inquired Mr. Crummles. ‘Miss So-and-so, of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane?’
‘I should say she would look very well in the bills,’ said Nicholas.
‘You’re about right there,’ said Mr. Crummles; ‘and if you had said she would look very well upon the stage too, you wouldn’t have been far out. Look here; what do you think of this?’
With this inquiry Mr. Crummles unfolded a red poster, and a blue poster, and a yellow poster, at the top of each of which public notification was inscribed in enormous characters—‘First appearance of the unrivalled Miss Petowker of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane!’
‘Dear me!’ said Nicholas, ‘I know that lady.’
‘Then you are acquainted with as much talent as was ever compressed into one young person’s body,’ retorted Mr. Crummles, rolling up the bills again; ‘that is, talent of a certain sort—of a certain sort. “The Blood Drinker,”’ added Mr. Crummles with a prophetic sigh, ‘“The Blood Drinker” will die with that girl; and she’s the only sylph I ever saw, who could stand upon one leg, and play the tambourine on her other knee, like a sylph.’
‘When does she come down?’ asked Nicholas.
‘We expect her today,’ replied Mr. Crummles. ‘She is an old friend of Mrs Crummles’s. Mrs. Crummles saw what she could do—always knew it from the first. She taught her, indeed, nearly all she knows. Mrs. Crummles was the original Blood Drinker.’
‘Was she, indeed?’
‘Yes. She was obliged to give it up though.’
‘Did it disagree with her?’ asked Nicholas.
‘Not so much with her, as with her audiences,’ replied Mr. Crummles. ‘Nobody could stand it. It was too tremendous. You don’t quite know what Mrs. Crummles is yet.’
Nicholas ventured to insinuate that he thought he did.
‘No, no, you don’t,’ said Mr. Crummles; ‘you don’t, indeed. I don’t, and that’s a fact. I don’t think her country will, till she is dead. Some new proof of talent bursts from that astonishing woman every year of her life. Look at her—mother of six children—three of ‘em alive, and all upon the stage!’
‘Extraordinary!’ cried Nicholas.
‘Ah! extraordinary indeed,’ rejoined Mr. Crummles, taking a complacent pinch of snuff, and shaking his head gravely. ‘I pledge you my professional word I didn’t even know she could dance, till her last benefit, and then she played Juliet, and Helen Macgregor, and did the skipping-rope hornpipe between the pieces. The very first time I saw that admirable woman, Johnson,’ said Mr. Crummles, drawing a little nearer, and speaking in the tone of confidential friendship, ‘she stood upon her head on the butt-end of a spear, surrounded with blazing fireworks.’
‘You astonish me!’ said Nicholas.
‘She astonished me!’ returned Mr. Crummles, with a very serious countenance. ‘Such grace, coupled with such dignity! I adored her from that moment!’
The arrival of the gifted subject of these remarks put an abrupt termination to Mr. Crummles’s eulogium. Almost immediately afterwards, Master Percy Crummles entered with a letter, which had arrived by the General Post, and was directed to his gracious mother; at sight of the superscription whereof, Mrs. Crummles exclaimed, ‘From Henrietta Petowker, I do declare!’ and instantly became absorbed in the contents.
‘Is it—?’ inquired Mr. Crummles, hesitating.
‘Oh, yes, it’s all right,’ replied Mrs. Crummles, anticipating the question. ‘What an excellent thing for her, to be sure!’
‘It’s the best thing altogether, that I ever heard of, I think,’ said Mr Crummles; and then Mr. Crummles, Mrs. Crummles, and Master Percy Crummles, all fell to laughing violently. Nicholas left them to enjoy their mirth together, and walked to his lodgings; wondering very much what mystery connected with Miss Petowker could provoke such merriment, and pondering still more on the extreme surprise with which that lady would regard his sudden enlistment in a profession of which she was such a distinguished and brilliant ornament.
But, in this latter respect he was mistaken; for—whether Mr. Vincent Crummles had paved the way, or Miss Petowker had some special reason for treating him with even more than her usual amiability—their meeting at the theatre next day was more like that of two dear friends who had been inseparable from infancy, than a recognition passing between a lady and gentleman who had only met some half-dozen times, and then by mere chance. Nay, Miss Petowker even whispered that she had wholly dropped the Kenwigses in her conversations with the manager’s family, and had represented herself as having encountered Mr. Johnson in the very first and most fashionable circles; and on Nicholas receiving this intelligence with unfeigned surprise, she added, with a sweet glance, that she had a claim on his good nature now, and might tax it before long.
Nicholas had the honour of playing in a slight piece with Miss Petowker that night, and could not but observe that the warmth of her reception was mainly attributable to a most persevering umbrella in the upper boxes; he saw, too, that the enchanting actress cast many sweet looks towards the quarter whence these sounds proceeded; and that every time she did so, the umbrella broke out afresh. Once, he thought that a peculiarly shaped hat in the same corner was not wholly unknown to him; but, being occupied with his share of the stage business, he bestowed no great attention upon this circumstance, and it had quite vanished from his memory by the time he reached home.
He had just sat down to supper with Smike, when one of the people of the house came outside the door, and announced that a gentleman below stairs wished to speak to Mr. Johnson.
‘Well, if he does, you must tell him to come up; that’s all I know,’ replied Nicholas. ‘One of our hungry brethren, I suppose, Smike.’
His fellow-lodger looked at the cold meat in silent calculation of the quantity that would be left for dinner next day, and put back a slice he had cut for himself, in order that the visitor’s encroachments might be less formidable in their effects.
‘It is not anybody who has been here before,’ said Nicholas, ‘for he is tumbling up every stair. Come in, come in. In the name of wonder! Mr Lillyvick?’
It was, indeed, the collector of water-rates who, regarding Nicholas with a fixed look and immovable countenance, shook hands with most portentous solemnity, and sat himself down in a seat by the chimney-corner.
‘Why, when did you come here?’ asked Nicholas.
‘This morning, sir,’ replied Mr. Lillyvick.
‘Oh! I see; then you were at the theatre tonight, and it was your umb—’
‘This umbrella,’ said Mr. Lillyvick, producing a fat green cotton one with a battered ferrule. ‘What did you think of that performance?’
‘So far as I could judge, being on the stage,’ replied Nicholas, ‘I thought it very agreeable.’
‘Agreeable!’ cried the collector. ‘I mean to say, sir, that it was delicious.’
Mr. Lillyvick bent forward to pronounce the last word with greater emphasis; and having done so, drew himself up, and frowned and nodded a great many times.
‘I say, delicious,’ repeated Mr. Lillyvick. ‘Absorbing, fairy-like, toomultuous,’ and again Mr. Lillyvick drew himself up, and again he frowned and nodded.
‘Ah!’ said Nicholas, a little surprised at these symptoms of ecstatic approbation. ‘Yes—she is a clever girl.’
‘She is a divinity,’ returned Mr. Lillyvick, giving a collector’s double knock on the ground with the umbrella before-mentioned. ‘I have known divine actresses before now, sir, I used to collect—at least I used to call for—and very often call for—the water-rate at the house of a divine actress, who lived in my beat for upwards of four year but never—no, never, sir of all divine creatures, actresses or no actresses, did I see a diviner one than is Henrietta Petowker.’
Nicholas had much ado to prevent himself from laughing; not trusting himself to speak, he merely nodded in accordance with Mr. Lillyvick’s nods, and remained silent.
‘Let me speak a word with you in private,’ said Mr. Lillyvick.
Nicholas looked good-humouredly at Smike, who, taking the hint, disappeared.
‘A bachelor is a miserable wretch, sir,’ said Mr. Lillyvick.
‘Is he?’ asked Nicholas.
‘He is,’ rejoined the collector. ‘I have lived in the world for nigh sixty year, and I ought to know what it is.’
‘You ought to know, certainly,’ thought Nicholas; ‘but whether you do or not, is another question.’
‘If a bachelor happens to have saved a little matter of money,’ said Mr Lillyvick, ‘his sisters and brothers, and nephews and nieces, look to that money, and not to him; even if, by being a public character, he is the head of the family, or, as it may be, the main from which all the other little branches are turned on, they still wish him dead all the while, and get low-spirited every time they see him looking in good health, because they want to come into his little property. You see that?’
‘Oh yes,’ replied Nicholas: ‘it’s very true, no doubt.’
‘The great reason for not being married,’ resumed Mr. Lillyvick, ‘is the expense; that’s what’s kept me off, or else—Lord!’ said Mr Lillyvick, snapping his fingers, ‘I might have had fifty women.’
‘Fine women?’ asked Nicholas.
‘Fine women, sir!’ replied the collector; ‘ay! not so fine as Henrietta Petowker, for she is an uncommon specimen, but such women as don’t fall into every man’s way, I can tell you. Now suppose a man can get a fortune in a wife instead of with her—eh?’
‘Why, then, he’s a lucky fellow,’ replied Nicholas.
‘That’s what I say,’ retorted the collector, patting him benignantly on the side of the head with his umbrella; ‘just what I say. Henrietta Petowker, the talented Henrietta Petowker has a fortune in herself, and I am going to—’
‘To make her Mrs. Lillyvick?’ suggested Nicholas.
‘No, sir, not to make her Mrs. Lillyvick,’ replied the collector. ‘Actresses, sir, always keep their maiden names—that’s the regular thing—but I’m going to marry her; and the day after tomorrow, too.’
‘I congratulate you, sir,’ said Nicholas.
‘Thank you, sir,’ replied the collector, buttoning his waistcoat. ‘I shall draw her salary, of course, and I hope after all that it’s nearly as cheap to keep two as it is to keep one; that’s a consolation.’
‘Surely you don’t want any consolation at such a moment?’ observed Nicholas.
‘No,’ replied Mr. Lillyvick, shaking his head nervously: ‘no—of course not.’
‘But how come you both here, if you’re going to be married, Mr. Lillyvick?’ asked Nicholas.
‘Why, that’s what I came to explain to you,’ replied the collector of water-rate. ‘The fact is, we have thought it best to keep it secret from the family.’
‘Family!’ said Nicholas. ‘What family?’
‘The Kenwigses of course,’ rejoined Mr. Lillyvick. ‘If my niece and the children had known a word about it before I came away, they’d have gone into fits at my feet, and never have come out of ‘em till I took an oath not to marry anybody—or they’d have got out a commission of lunacy, or some dreadful thing,’ said the collector, quite trembling as he spoke.
‘To be sure,’ said Nicholas. ‘Yes; they would have been jealous, no doubt.’
‘To prevent which,’ said Mr. Lillyvick, ‘Henrietta Petowker (it was settled between us) should come down here to her friends, the Crummleses, under pretence of this engagement, and I should go down to Guildford the day before, and join her on the coach there, which I did, and we came down from Guildford yesterday together. Now, for fear you should be writing to Mr. Noggs, and might say anything about us, we have thought it best to let you into the secret. We shall be married from the Crummleses’ lodgings, and shall be delighted to see you—either before church or at breakfast-time, which you like. It won’t be expensive, you know,’ said the collector, highly anxious to prevent any misunderstanding on this point; ‘just muffins and coffee, with perhaps a shrimp or something of that sort for a relish, you know.’
‘Yes, yes, I understand,’ replied Nicholas. ‘Oh, I shall be most happy to come; it will give me the greatest pleasure. Where’s the lady stopping—with Mrs. Crummles?’
‘Why, no,’ said the collector; ‘they couldn’t very well dispose of her at night, and so she is staying with an acquaintance of hers, and another young lady; they both belong to the theatre.’
‘Miss Snevellicci, I suppose?’ said Nicholas.
‘Yes, that’s the name.’
‘And they’ll be bridesmaids, I presume?’ said Nicholas.
‘Why,’ said the collector, with a rueful face, ‘they will have four bridesmaids; I’m afraid they’ll make it rather theatrical.’
‘Oh no, not at all,’ replied Nicholas, with an awkward attempt to convert a laugh into a cough. ‘Who may the four be? Miss Snevellicci of course—Miss Ledrook—’
‘The—the phenomenon,’ groaned the collector.
‘Ha, ha!’ cried Nicholas. ‘I beg your pardon, I don’t know what I’m laughing at—yes, that’ll be very pretty—the phenomenon—who else?’
‘Some young woman or other,’ replied the collector, rising; ‘some other friend of Henrietta Petowker’s. Well, you’ll be careful not to say anything about it, will you?’
‘You may safely depend upon me,’ replied Nicholas. ‘Won’t you take an............