The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 251: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

234 REYNOLDS’ WORKS aristocrats and fashionables who penetrated behind the scenes. One evening, a week after the incidents related in the preceding chapters, the concert-room was more than usually crowded by such visitors. The opera performed that night was ‘“‘I Puritani,” and during an interval between the acts, Grisi, Lablache, and other eminent artistes engaged at the establishment were gathered in a group conversing together in that concert-room. Dispersed about were the other performers in the opera, and likewise the dancers in attendance upon the ballet. Although we have stated that as a general rule the ballet-girls will not bear a very close inspection, or at least that such near view is likely to produce some feeling of disappointment, yet there are of course exceptions to this rule, and a few beautiful creatures may be seen amongst them. Nor was it otherwise on the night to which we are specially referring, and those who were best- looking, as a matter of course, engrossed the principal share of attention on the part of the privileged loungers from out- side. Rest assured, reader, that Angela Vivaldi was not present in the concert-room. Though engaged to dance that evening, she remained in her own dressing-chamber until the appointed hour came, and then all intruders from before the curtain were compelled to retire. Such was her positive stipulation, and the rule was as rigorously observed as it could possibly be. But Mademoiselle d’Alembert was very far from being so particular, and she was conspicuous amongst the stars of the dance congregated there. Apparelled in a Spanish dress, her fine figure was set off by that costume to the utmost advantage, so that the somewhat luxurious fulness of her shape was well displayed. She was not one who grew thin, much less emaciated, by her avocations, for being a thorough proficient in the dance, she practised but little, and having a.carriage to convey her to or from the scene of her Terp- sichorean displays, and good clothes to muffle herself up in, she ran no chance of impairing her health through colds and coughs. Having a table, too, well supplied with every luxury, and being addicted to gormandizing, she maintained herself in a comfortable condition of plumpness, though at the same time the most punctilious critic of female beauty would not have pronounced her too stout. She possessed Gomichbooks (E(0)