That nothing was too small to catch her pale, cold eye is proved by the fact that even a ballet-girl's dress received her attention. Next day, after the play "Fashion" had been done, this woman was saying: "That girl's mother had better be looking after her conduct, I think!"
"Why, what on earth has Clara done?" asked her listener.
"Done!" she cried, "didn't you see her flaunting herself around the stage last night in silks and laces no honest girl could own? Where did the money come from that paid for such finery?"
A few days later a woman who boarded in the house favored by the mischief-maker happened to meet Mrs. Dickson, happily for me, and said, _en passant_: "Which one of your ballet-girls is it who has taken to dressing with so much wicked extravagance? I wonder Mrs. Ellsler don't notice it."
Now Mrs. Dickson was Scotch, generous, and "unco" quick-tempered, and after she had put the inquiring friend right, she visited her wrath upon the originator of the slander in person, and verily the Scottish burr was on her tongue, and her "r's" rolled famously while she explained the component parts of that extravagant costume: window curtain--her gift--and paper cambric and artificial flowers to the cost of one dollar and seventy-five cents; "and you'll admit," she cried, "that even the purse of a 'gude lass' can stand sic a strain as that; and what's mair, you wicked woman, had the girl been worse dressed than the others, you would ha' been the first to call attention to her as slovenly and careless."
This was the first drop of scandal expressed especially for me, and I not only found the taste bitter--very bitter--but learned that it had wonderful powers of expansion, and that the odor it gives off is rather pleasant in the nostrils of everyone save its object.
Mrs. Dickson, who, by the way, is still doing good work professionally, has doubtless forgotten the entire incident, curtain and all, but she never will forget the bonnie baby-girl she lost that summer, and she will remember me because I loved the little one--that's a mother's way.
Mr. Peter B. Richings was that joy of the actor's heart--a character. He had been accounted a very fine actor in his day, but he was a very old man when I saw him, and his powers were much impaired. Six feet tall, high-featured, Roman-nosed, elegantly dressed; a term from bygone days--and not disrespectfully used--describes him perfectly: he was an "old Buck!"