It is a lot of fun going to the theatre here.  It doesn’t cost much, and the plays are good and generally funny, and a rheumatic audience is a very jolly one.  The people seemed glad to forget their backs, their shoulders, and their legs, and they are ready to laugh at things that are only half comic, and keep up a lively chattering between the acts.  It’s fun to see them when the play is over.  The bath-chairs that have come after some of them are brought right into the building, and are drawn up just like carriages after the theatre.  The first time we went I wanted Jone to stop a while and see if we didn’t hear somebody call out, “Mrs. Barchester’s bath-chair stops the way!” but he said I expected too much, and would not wait.

We sit about so much in the gardens, which are lively when it is clear, and not bad even in a little drizzle, that we’ve got to know a good many of the people; and although Jone’s a good deal given to reading, I like to sit and watch them and see what they are doing.

When we first came here I noticed a good-looking young woman who was hauled about in a bath-chair, generally with an open book in her lap, which she never seemed to read much, because she was always gazing around as if she was looking for something.  Before long I found out what she was looking for, for every day, sooner or later, generally sooner, there came along a bath-chair with a good-looking young man in it.  He had a book in his lap too, but he was never reading it when I saw him, because he was looking for the young woman; and as soon as they saw each other they began to smile, and as they passed they always said something, but didn’t stop.  I wondered why they didn’t give their pullers a rest and have a good talk if they knew each other, but before long I noticed not very far behind the young lady’s bath-chair was always another bath-chair with an old gentleman in it with a bottle-nose.  After a while I found out that this was the young lady’s father, because sometimes he would call to her and have her stop, and then she generally seemed to get some sort of a scolding.

Of course, when I see anything of this kind going on, I can’t help taking one side or the other, and as you may well believe, madam, I wouldn’t be likely to take that of the old bottle-nosed man’s side.  I had not been noticing these people for more than two or three days when one morning, when Jone and me was sitting under an umbrella, for there was a little more rain than common, I saw these two young people in their bath-chairs, coming along side by side, and talking just as hard as they could.  At first I was surprised, but I soon saw how things was:  the old gentleman couldn’t come out in the rain.  It was plain enough from the way these two young people looked at each other that they was in love, and although it most likely hurt them just as much to come out into the rain as it would the old man, love is all-powerful, even over rheumatism.