“Hollo there! aint you the party that brought a three-cornered letter here last evening!”

I owned it, falteringly.

He lifted a fold in the canvas, and gave me a gentle shove between the shoulders.

“Then you’re to go in,” said he, shortly.  “She’s there, somewhere.  You’re sure to find her.”

The canvas dropped behind me, and I found myself inside.  My heart beat so fast that I could scarcely breathe.  The booth was almost dark; the curtain was down; and a gentleman with striped legs was lighting the footlamps.  On the front pit bench next the orchestra, discussing a plate of bread and meat and the contents of a brown jug, sat a stout man in shirt-sleeves and a woman in a cotton gown.  The woman rose as I made my appearance, and asked, civilly enough, whom I pleased to want.

I stammered the name of Miss Angelina Lascelles.

“Miss Lascelles!” she repeated.  “I am Miss Lascelles,” Then, looking at me more narrowly, “I suppose,” she added, “you are the little boy that brought the letter?”

The little boy that brought the letter!  Gracious heavens!  And this middle-aged woman in a cotton gown—­was she the Angelina of my dreams!  The booth went round with me, and the lights danced before my eyes.

“If you have come for an answer,” she continued, “you may just say to your Mr. Pyramid that I am a respectable married woman, and he ought to be ashamed of himself—­and, as for his letter, I never read such a heap of nonsense in my life!  There, you can go out by the way you came in, and if you take my advice, you won’t come back again!”

How I looked, what I said, how I made my exit, whether the doorkeeper spoke to me as I passed, I have no idea to this day.  I only know that I flung myself on the dewy grass under a great tree in the first field I came to, and shed tears of such shame, disappointment, and wounded pride, as my eyes had never known before.  She had called me a little boy, and my letter a heap of nonsense!  She was elderly—­she was ignorant—­she was married!  I had been a fool; but that knowledge came too late, and was not consolatory.

By-and-by, while I was yet sobbing and disconsolate, I heard the drumming and fifing which heralded the appearance of the Corps Dramatique on the outer platform.  I resolved to see her for the last time.  I pulled my hat over my eyes, went back to the Green, and mingled with the crowd outside the booth.  It was growing dusk.  I made my way to the foot of the ladder, and observed her narrowly.  I saw that her ankles were thick, and her elbows red.  The illusion was all over.  The spangles had lost their lustre, and the poppies their glow.  I no longer hated the harlequin, or envied the clown, or felt anything but mortification at my own folly.

“Miss Angelina Lascelles, indeed!” I said to myself, as I sauntered moodily home.  “Pshaw!  I shouldn’t wonder if her name was Snooks!”