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66 he made a pause, and then, reminding his companion of his promise to join him, he ran in as if life and death were on his speed. Norbourne went round to the front of the house, where every thing promised well. There was a brilliant audience—rank, beauty, and wit—while he went from box to box, doing his utmost to predispose the listeners in the author's favour. As he looked round the house, he could not but feel that the triumph was well worth the risk: the mastery over human emotion had never before appeared to him so glorious. In another hour the hopes and the recollections, the thoughts and the feelings, the most generous aspirations and the tenderest sympathies of our nature, would be stirred, and by what? The noble creation of one gifted and inspired mind! The overture was almost at a close; and silence being now more effective than any thing that he could urge in favour of the play, Courtenaye went behind the scenes: never had the contrast struck him so forcibly. Before the curtain all was light and brilliancy;