All the play-houses were lamented as, “thin of company, thin of performers, thin of lights, thin of figurantes, thin of scene-shifters, thin of everything!” Always, however, there was the opera, should the de Bourgh ladies fail to obtain admission to a private concert. These early months, whilst securing a far greater proportion of men than ladies, afforded only a portion of the usual pleasures of the opera: the interminable wait for one’s carriage in the concluding performance of the crush-room, where all of the fashionables in attendance were packed into a small antechamber to await the call of, “Lady C———’s carriage,” “His Grace, the Duke of——— to drive off,” “Sir H———’s servants are without,” and other such harmonious strains shouted over the deafening din; starving above an hour where there was no food or drink to be had at any price; having one’s skirts soiled, feet trampled, arms bruised by elbows and canes; ornaments caught in the finery of others in the mob; choaking on the dust, and imbibing the fumes of expiring lamps and burnt-out candles, in a blowing draught of air; young ladies by the score shivering in their thin gowns, shawls uselessly arranged over only one shoulder so as to attract the notice of some exiting gentleman in the effort of a final flirtation, rendering it impossible that the man could refuse the office of handing them into their carriages (to be seen hazarding the small, wet steps unassisted was to broadcast a signal failure); the older ladies all near to expiring with the draught and cold, pleading with their daughters in weak tones from the sofas, “Please do let us leave, Sophia, the coachman has been waiting this past half-hour!”