Page:The Story of Nell Gwyn.djvu/83

Rh The King was present at the first performance, when his own heart was acknowledging and his own eyes betraying the sense he entertained of the beauty and wit of the charming actress who played Alizia on the stage, and who was hereafter to move in the same sphere in which the original had moved—with greater honesty and much more affection.

While little Miss Davis was living in handsome lodgings in Suffolk Street, and baring her hand in public in the face of the Countess of Castlemaine, to show the 700l. ring which the King had given her, a report arose that "the King had sent for Nelly." Nor was it long before this gossip of the town was followed by other rumours about her, not likely, it was thought, to be true, from her constant appearance on the stage, speaking prologues in fantastic hats and Amazonian habits, playing as she did, too, at this time Valeria in Dryden's last new tragedy of "Tyrannick Love, or the Royal Martyr," and Donna Jacintha in Dryden's latest comedy, called "An Evening's Love, or the Mock Astrologer." Other rumours, relating to Lord Buckhurst, and since found to be true, were current at the same time,—