Page:The Story of Nell Gwyn.djvu/35

Rh wore vizards or masks. The middle gallery was long the favourite resort of Mr. and Mrs Pepys.

The upper gallery, as at present, was attended by the poorest and the noisiest. Servants in livery were admitted as soon as the fifth act commenced.

With the orange-girls (who stood as we have seen in the pit, with their back to the stage) the beaux about town were accustomed to break their jests; and that the language employed was not of the most delicate description, we may gather from the dialogue of Dorimant, in Etherege's comedy of Sir Fopling Flutter.

The mistress or superior of the girls was familiarly known as Orange Moll, and filled the same sort of office in the theatre that the mother of the maids occupied at court among the maids of honour. Both Sir William Penn and Pepys would occasionally have "a great deal of discourse" with Orange Moll; and Mrs. Knep, the actress, when in want of Pepys, sent Moll to the Clerk of the Acts with the welcome message. To higgle about the price of the fruit was thought beneath the character of a gentleman. "The next step," says the Young Gallant's Academy, "is to give a turn to the China orange wench, and give her her own rate for her