We went early, and established ourselves in the orchestra-stalls, as already stated, while our guardian accepted an unpretending seat for himself, where he remained in readiness to tow us home after the performance.  And then the spectators began to come in, and positively some of the very people who used to be at the panorama.  I know there was a lady in front of me, in Mechanic Hall, who wore her hair in just such a little knot—­pug is, I think, the classic name for that coiffure—­and her dress cut as low in the throat and adorned with precisely such a self-embroidered collar as the lady rejoiced in who occupied the seat before me at the theatre.  That she was one of the fashionables of Carlstad could be seen in the lofty pose of that pug, and in the curious structure of ribbon and lace that sat astride of it and hung down at each side.  Her husband, a small, rather dried-up gentleman, had the look of a town oracle who was oppressed at home, and her daughter was one of the prettiest girls in the house.  The overgrown boy, the son and heir, was not pretty:  he sat beside his sister and kept nudging her.  I could not exactly understand what he said in Swedish, but I know it must have been of this nature:  “There’s Jim Davis over there.  Look, sister, look!”

Sister only glanced at him with a reproving air of “Don’t push me so,” and then gazed steadfastly in the other direction; but she was not left long in peace.  Tom’s elbow began again in a minute:  “He’s looking right at you, all the time.  You’d better turn round and bow to him.”  And the color would creep up in her cheeks, do all she could to prevent it, so that she had to lean across mamma and say something to her father, just so as not to bow to Mr. Davis, which would have been such a simple thing to do, after all.

Everybody who came in nodded and spoke to everybody else, and then shook hands across the seats; and we felt quite out of our element under the inquiring but superior glances that fell to our lot.  It was all very well for us to make our little observations and smile at each other on the sly:  we had the consciousness all the while of not belonging to the first society in Carlstad, and of being viewed as intruders in that select circle.

We had been studying one family party after another as the seats filled around us, for the audience collected by families, when, with a little rustle and stir attending her progress, and a whispering behind her as she advanced, the Bride appeared, for she had arrived from Stockholm by our train.  It was the first time any one had seen her since she started on the wedding-tour, and the bows and smiles she dealt out on every side were not to be numbered.  Our pretty girl got one—­they were school-friends—­and the horrid boy another, which he barely answered with a solemn nod of his head, being as shy of her, apparently, in her blue silk and white cape, as his sister was of Mr. Davis.  It was really a very pretty dress of the Bride’s,