OPERA "DOROTHY."

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 29 October 1901, Page 2

OPERA "DOROTHY."

Act 111.

! This act opens with the wedding of Phyllis to Tom Grass. The Scarlet Runners—Phylhs's bridesmaids—trip a ballet which the old women endeavour to imitate. Mrs Privet has an appointment with Lurcher in the Round Coppice, which is disturbed by Squire Bantam just at the critical moment. Now Dorothy and Lydia are going to see the real value of the protestations of their swains, for Wilder and Sherwood have returned their allegiance to the two peasant girls, and they have written to withdraw their pledges of the night before to Dorothy and Lydia. In reply they have received a challenge from two young gentlemen ready to call them to account for their conduct to Miss Dorothy Bantam and Miss Lydia Hawthorne, and the two ladies are waiting (disguised a 3 boys) to sec if their adorers are willing to prefer a duel to giving them up. Lydia is nervous about the pistols, but Dorothy reassures her. All arrangements are made for the latest idea of duelling, when at the supreme moment the girls take ilight. The Squire again arrives on the scene with Lurcher, who has turned Queen's evidence, and the Squire is ready to forgive everything . if his nephew is ready to marry Dorothy, !

and eventually the old man has his way. Dorothy marries her cousin, Lydia marries Sherwood, and the awkward circumstances under which Dorothy's ring found its way on to Lydia's finger and Lydia's on to Dorothy's, are overlooked, for each lady knows that her lover was ready to die rather than marry her friend.