bringing food, stoves, coverlets, wool to mend his socks and ideas to
mend his opera. Naturally here were opportunities of unlimited business,
during which _Marjorie_ (Miss RENÉE KELLY) looked perfectly sweet, as I
heard more than one ardent young lady declare to approving lieutenants.

Miss KELLY has indeed all the air of a heroine of honeyed romance. In
particular she played one episode, the trying over of a new song, in
a winningly natural manner. I found the way in which she flapped her
eyelids a subject of puzzled study. I have not observed that maidens in
real life indulge in these calisthenics. This is perhaps as well; they
are evidently very deadly. Within a fortnight of their being brought
into action poet _Quintard_ is in the _Kamerad_ stage. Not _Anne
Whitfield_ herself exhibits more explicitly the urgency of the life
force, the will to wed.

Mr. OWEN NARES, who has a following more than sufficient to justify his
recent assumption of management, gave a very attractive and indeed,
within the limits imposed by the piece, a distinguished performance
as the proud and hungry poet. An extreme naturalness of pose and
intonation, without over-stresses or affectations, characterised this
agreeable study. Mr. HOLMAN CLARK, that finished actor in the bland
manner, very adroitly, as I have hinted, settled the mood of the piece
and made the good appear the better line and the ordinary line good. Mr.
SYDNEY VALENTINE had a Valentine part ready made. It would take more
than an indisposition, which he pluckily ignored, to put him off his
stroke. Mr. TOM REYNOLDS was effective as a maudlin serving-man who
had once butled a real gentleman and could never forget it. Miss ANNIE
ESMOND gave a depressingly clever rendering of a quite unbelievably
appalling landlady.