Like It_, and _Katharina_, in the _Taming of the Shrew._ I can quite
believe that Miss REHAN is a great success in parts of the calibre
of the Shakspearian heroines I have mentioned; nay, more, I fancy she
would do something with _Lady Macbeth_, and be quite in her element
as _Emilia_, in _Othello_. But, as she had to play an _ingénue_, aged
eighteen, in _The Great Unknown_, she was not quite convincing. It
was a very good part. In the First Act she had to coax her papa, and
flirt with her cousin; in the second, to respond to a declaration of
love with a burst of womanly feeling; and, in the third, to play the
hoyden, and dance a breakdown. All this was done to perfection, but
not by a young lady of eighteen. Miss ADA REHAN was charming, but
looked, and I fancy felt, many years older than her legal majority.
I question whether she was an _ingénue_ at all, but, if she were, she
was an _ingénue_ of great and varied experience. When Mrs. BANCROFT
appeared as the girl-pupil in _School_, she was the character to the
life; but when Miss REHAN calls herself _Etna_, throws herself on
sofas, and hugs a man with less inches than herself, we cannot but
feel that it is very superior play-acting, but still play-acting. Take
it all round, I was delighted with the lady at the Lyceum, and the
horse at the Adelphi, and nearly regret that, having to leave town, I
shall not have the opportunity of seeing either of them again.

Yours faithfully. A CRITIC FROM THE COUNTRY.

* * * * *

A HOLIDAY APPEAL.

[Last year Mrs. JEUNE'S "Country Holiday Fund" was the means
of sending 1,075 poor, sickly, London children for a few weeks