BARBABA S----.


On the noon of the 14th of November, 1743, just as the clock had struck
one, Barbara S----, with her accustomed punctuality, ascended the long,
rabbling staircase, with awkward interposed landing-places, which led to
the office, or rather a sort of box with a desk in it, whereat sat the
then Treasurer of the Old Bath Theatre. All over the island it was the
custom, and remains so I believe to this day, for the players to receive
their weekly stipend on the Saturday. It was not much that Barbara had
to claim.

This little maid had just entered her eleventh year; but her important
station at the theatre, as it seemed to her, with the benefits which she
felt to accrue from her pious application of her small earnings, had
given an air of womanhood her steps and to her behaviour. You would have
taken her to have been at least five years older. Till latterly she had
merely been employed in choruses, or where children were wanted to fill
up the scene. But the manager, observing a diligence and adroitness in
her above her age, had for some few months past intrusted to her the
performance of whole parts. You may guess the self-consequence of the
promoted Barbara.

* * * * *

The parents of Barbara had been in reputable circumstances. The father
had practised, I believe, as an apothecary in the town. But his