with the difference that it was at night and not by day, and with the great additional pleasure of wearing a new dress of white satin, which was so soft and exquisite to the touch, and—oh the dignity of this!—with a small train to it. It had no ornament, not even a flower; for when I heard that I must not wear real flowers, for fear of their dropping on the stage and some one slipping upon them, I would not have any others. As the time for the play to begin approached, and I heard the instruments tuning, and a voice cry out that 'the overture was on," I felt a most unaccountable sensation stealing over me. This feeling grew and grew until it nearly overcame me. I saw my mother looking very anxiously at me, and I could not hide from myself that I felt good for nothing. I begged her to leave me to myself for a few minutes. At first she did not gather what was in my mind, and tried to rally my courage; but again I begged to be left, for I knew well that when alone I could more freely seek the help which all so suddenly I seemed to need more than I ever could have guessed. My wish was granted. They did not return to me until I was wanted for the stage. I remember being asked if I had left anything behind, when I turned to give a last look at the relics in the glass case. It was a sort of farewell—a feeling as if life were ending.

My sister, to give me comfort, was to be the Lady Capulet. Poor darling! she was so agitated that they could hardly persuade her to appear on the scene; and when the nurse had called out for the "lamb," the "ladybird" (your “ladybird," you know, ever after), the Juliet rushed straight into her mother's arms, never to be lured from them again during the scene by all the cajolings of the nurse. How the lights

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perplexed me! All seemed so different! I could see faces so close to me. It was well I could see one whose agitation was apparent to me on the instant. I felt I must try to please him, this dear friend of all my young life, my constant helper and instructor, who, though he was no blood relative, always called me "his child." He it was who taught me much of what I learned, after my delicate health took me from school, and sent me to the sea-shore. To him and him only could I confide, with the assurance of perfect sympathy, all my devotion for the heroines of Shakespeare. He taught me the value of the different metres in blank verse and in rhyme, as I recited to him many of Milton's poems, the "Lycidas,” large portions of "Paradise Lost," and Byron's "Darkness," which I knew by heart. He made me understand the value of words, nay, of every letter of every word, for the purposes of declamation. Nothing was to be slighted. This true friend -a man of varied and large acquirements, a humorist, too, and a wit-never refused, although most delicate in health, to give me largely of his time. How grateful I was, and am to him! His death, which happened far too soon for my advantage-though not for his, it released him from a life of pain-robbed me of my first and truest guide and friend. It was his face I saw. Should his "child," his darling, give him pain-disappointment? No! Gradually he and Juliet filled my mind, and I went on swimmingly until the fourth act.

Here, with all the ardour and all the ignorance of a novice, I took no heed that the phial for the sleeping potion, which Friar Laurence had given me, was of glass, but kept it tightly in my hand, as though it were a real deliverance from a dreaded fate which it was to effect for me, through the long

impassioned scene that follows. When the time came to drink the potion, there was none; for the phial had been crushed in my hand, the fragments of glass were eating their way into the tender palm, and the blood was trickling down in a little stream over my pretty dress. This had been for some time apparent to the audience, but the Juliet knew nothing of it, and felt nothing, until the red stream arrested her attention. Excited as I already was, this was too much for me; and having always had a sickening horror of the bare sight or even talk of blood, poor Juliet grew faint, and went staggering towards the bed, on which she really fainted. I remember nothing of the end of the play, beyond seeing many kind people in my dressing-room, and wondering what this meant. Our good family doctor from London was among the audience, and bound up the wounded hand. This never occurred again, because they ever afterwards gave me a wooden phial. But oh, my dress!-my first waking thought. I was inconsolable, until told that the injured part could be renewed.

So much for my first Juliet! I repeated the character several times in the same little theatre-each time trying to make it more like what I thought would satisfy my dear master. I sought no other praise.

On the last occasion he was there. When I saw him at the end of the play I was sure something was wrong. He was very silent, and when I begged to have his opinion, whatever it might be, he told me I had not improved,—that I had disappointed him. I was not in the character throughout, and he feared I had not the true artistic power to lose myself in the being of another. Oh the pain this caused me! The

wound is even now only scarred over. I would not let him see my grief, but I knew no sleep that night for weeping. My generous sweet sister thought I had been cruelly treated, and tried to comfort me and heal my wounds, but they were far too deep for that.

Next day my dear friend was deeply pained to see that I had taken his censure so sorely to heart, and had forgotten how, here and there, it had been tempered with approbation. After some talk with my mother, it was decided that Juliet and all other heroines were for me to pass once more into "the sphere of dream." I was quietly to forget them and return to my studies. My friend confessed that he had expected too much from my tender years-that an English girl of the age which Shakespeare assigns to Juliet was in every respect a different creature. Development must come later; I certainly was never a precocious child. So until I appeared about three years later on the London stage, my life was very studious and very quiet.

How good and tender and helpful that dear friend was to me ever after, and how repentant for having caused me that bitter night of sorrow, taking all the blame upon himself, and declaring that he had no right to look for what he did in one so young! Doubtless he was wrong in expecting too much; but the lesson I then learned was never forgotten. He saw and helped me in every other character I acted until his too early death, which was the first great sorrow of my life. Generous heart, I hope your own could tell you how loving and how grateful mine was!

The last night he saw me act at Drury Lane, he had almost to be carried to his private box. He died about ten days

after. Never can I forget how good and thoughtful for me Mr Macready proved himself at this time. I had something very important and difficult to study at a short notice-I forget what. It was drawing towards the end of a season in which my work had been most exhausting. I was very ill and tired, so that my memory, usually quick enough, seemed to fail me. I grew nervous, and told Mr Macready that even by sitting up at night I feared I could not be ready at the time he wished. This engrossing study accounted for my not seeing my dear friend for some days together-only sending to his house daily to inquire after him. During one of those nights that I was spending in study-the night before its results were to be made public-he died. This was kept from me, but word of the sad event was sent in the morning to Mr Macready. As my acting that night was of the utmost importance, he sent me a kind note, asking me to go to him directly at the theatre, share his little dinner there, and go quietly over with him the scenes which were making me nervous, telling me he was quite sure he could put me at my ease. I accepted his invitation, and his gentle kindness I shall ever remember with gratitude. As the afternoon wore on, he sent for my dresser, and told her to make me lie down for an hour or two before I thought of dressing for the stage. I had a lurking feeling through the day that something was happening, all looked at me so earnestly and kindly, but what trouble was hanging over me I could not even guess, because the last news given to me of my friend before I left home had been reassuring.

When the performance was over, or my part of it, Mr Macready met me as I was leaving the theatre, and put a