From the introductory to Chapter I: Sally the Ingenue.
Miss Sally De Burgh was drawing crowded houses to the Frivolity, known to its frequenters as the Friv. Hers was a turn in such piquant contrast to the rest of the performance that it was no wonder the palate of even the most jaded playgoer was tickled. Sandwiched between the Sisters St Clair, buxom ladies in tights, who had nothing saintly about them but their name, and a couple of negro comedians, came this still, large-eyed child, her fair hair in two long plaits over her shoulders, so innocent to look at that it seemed almost a profanation to find her there.
By Jove, she looks like moonlight, Mr. Folkard, the critic of the Morning, had said to Mr. Watson of the Forum.
Or a sleep-walker, said Mr. Watson. La Somnambula.
The comparison was not amiss as Sally, virginal in her straight, white gown, advanced towards the footlights and stood gazing at the crowded house with that unseeing gaze. One had to be very observant to discover that the lip trembled as though with secret laughter.
She sang songs of gardens and roses, and dew, in a pure cold voice that went shrilling up like the larks, falling like his in a silver rain. She mimicked all the birds in all the bushes. Then she sang country songs, dancing deliciously as she sang.
Like the sorbet after the devilled lobster, said a less poetic critic than those of the Morning and the Forum.
Only the very cynical -- it is amazing how much sentiment, not to say sentimentality, lingers in the hearts of middle-aged journalists, and Mr. Folkard had written what someone called a threnody on Sally in the columns of the Morning -- ventured to doubt such obvious innocence or to suggest that it would disappear before the hot air of the theatre. Even to those who discovered the hidden laughter it was as the laughter of a child.
She had another turn with animals, the Happy Family as it was called. There was a sheep, a couple of geese, a jackdaw, a poodle, a Persian kitten, and half a dozen canaries -- which was as pretty as possible; it was so obvious that the animals had been trained by affection and not by fear. She did very quaint things with them and they with her. When the sheep baa-ed and the canaries sang and the geese cackled and the cock crowed, it gave the Friv. audience quite the feeling of being in the country.
Where do you suppose, sir, that she keeps them all when they are off the stage? asked a young man, his top-hat worn at the back of his head, as they did it in those days, of Mr. Folkard, sitting in the row of stalls immediately in front of him. He was an ingenuous youth, very young, with a good honest face, which suggested rather a countryman than the smart young man his attire proclaimed him to be; very good blue eyes, a longish nose, a small golden moustache -- quite a prepossessing boy....