The Impudent Comedian and Others

Nelly—Nelly—Nell! Now, where's the wench?” cried Mrs. Gwyn, before she had more than passed the threshold of her daughter's house in St. James's Park—the house with the terrace garden, where, as the sedate Evelyn records, the charming Nelly had stood exchanging some very lively phrases with her royal lover on the green walk below, giving the grave gentleman cause to grieve greatly. But, alas! the record of his sorrow has only made his untold readers mad that they had not been present to grieve, also, over that entrancing tableau. “Nelly—Nell! Where's your mistress, sirrah?” continued the somewhat portly and undoubtedly overdressed mother of the “impudent comedian,” referred to by Evelyn, turning to a man-servant who wore the scarlet livery of the king. “Where should she be, madam, at this hour, unless in the hands of her tirewomen? It is but an hour past noon.” “You lie, knave! She is at hand,” cried the lady, as the musical lilt of a song sounded on the landing above the dozen shallow oak stairs leading out of the square hall, and a couple of fat spaniels, at the sound, lazily left their place on a cushion, and waddled towards the stairs to meet and greet their mistress. She appeared in the lobby, and stood for a moment or two looking out of a window that commanded a fine view of the trees outside—they were in blossom right down to the wall. She made a lovely picture, with one hand shading her eyes from the sunlight that entered through the small square panes, singing all the time in pure lightness of heart. She wore her brown hair in the short ringlets of the period, and they danced on each side of her face as if they were knowing little sprites for whose ears her singing was meant.