So thought honest Cibber, and wrote at leisure to his Virginia acquaintance.  It made small difference whether he wrote or refrained from writing, for he had naught to do with the destinies of Darden’s Audrey.  ’Twas almost summer before there came an answer to his letter.  He showed it to Wilks in the greenroom, between the acts of “The Provoked Husband.”  Mrs. Oldfield read it over their shoulders, and vowed that ’twas a moving story; nay, more, in her next scene there was a moisture in Lady Townly’s eyes quite out of keeping with the vivacity of her lines.

Darden’s Audrey had to do with Virginia, not London; with the winter, never more the summer.  It is not known how acceptable her Monimia, her Belvidera, her Isabella, would have been to London playgoers.  Perhaps they would have received them as did the Virginians, perhaps not.  Cibber himself might or might not have drawn for us her portrait; might or might not have dwelt upon the speaking eye, the slow, exquisite smile with which she made more sad her saddest utterances, the wild charm of her mirth, her power to make each auditor fear as his own the impending harm, the tragic splendor in which, when the bolt had fallen, converged all the pathos, beauty, and tenderness of her earlier scenes.  A Virginian of that winter, writing of her, had written thus; but then Williamsburgh was not London, nor its playhouse Drury Lane.  Perhaps upon that ruder stage, before an audience less polite, with never a critic in the pit or footman in the gallery, with no Fops’ Corner and no great number of fine ladies in the boxes, the jewel shone with a lustre that in a brighter light it had not worn.  There was in Mr. Charles Stagg’s company of players no mate for any gem; this one was set amongst pebbles, and perhaps by contrast alone did it glow so deeply.

However this may be, in Virginia, in the winter and the early spring of that year of grace Darden’s Audrey was known, extravagantly praised, toasted, applauded to the echo.  Night after night saw the theatre crowded, gallery, pit, and boxes.  Even the stage had its row of chairs, seats held not too dear at half a guinea.  Mr. Stagg had visions of a larger house, a fuller company, renown and prosperity undreamed of before that fortunate day when, in the grape arbor, he and his wife had stood and watched Darden’s Audrey asleep, with her head pillowed upon her arm.

Darden’s Audrey!  The name clung to her, though the minister had no further lot or part in her fate.  The poetasters called her Charmante, Anwet, Chloe,—­what not!  Young Mr. Lee in many a slight and pleasing set of verses addressed her as Sylvia, but to the community at large she was Darden’s Audrey, and an enigma greater than the Sphinx.  Why would she not marry Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View?  Was the girl looking for a prince to come overseas for her?  Or did she prefer to a dazzling marriage the excitement of the theatre, the adulation, furious applause?  That