enthusiasm, and it was not until they had unanimously agreed to act, that they universally remembered that acting was not allowed. And then they consulted whether they should ask Dallas, and then they remembered that Dallas had been asked fifty times, and then they "supposed they must give it up;" and then Vivian Grey made a proposition which the rest were secretly sighing for, but which they were afraid to make themselves—he proposed that they should act without asking Dallas.—"Well, then, well do it without asking him," said Vivian;-"Nothing 's allowed in this life, and every thing is done:—in town there's a thing called the French play, and that 's not allowed, yet my aunt has got a private box there. Trust me for acting—but what shall we perform?"
This question was, as usual, the fruitful source of jarring opinions. One proposed Othello, chiefly because it would be so easy to black a face with a burnt cork. Another was
