"_Father!_" I cried out, really shocked.

"They're second fiddle parts--not the parts for you, Duchess."

"Father!" I gasped out again, for really I thought Ophelia a pretty good
part, and was delighted at my success with it.

But granting these _were_ "second fiddle" parts, I want to make quite
clear that I had my turn of "first fiddle" ones. "Romeo and Juliet,"
"Much Ado About Nothing," "Olivia," and "The Cup" all gave me finer
opportunities than they gave Henry. In "The Merchant of Venice" and
"Charles I." they were at least equal to his.

I have sometimes wondered what I should have accomplished without Henry
Irving. I might have had "bigger" parts, but it doesn't follow that they
would have been better ones, and if they had been written by
contemporary dramatists my success would have been less durable. "No
actor or actress who doesn't play in the 'classics'--in Shakespeare or
old comedy--will be heard of long," was one of Henry Irving's sayings,
by the way, and he was right.

It was a long time before we had much talk with each other. In the
"Hamlet" days, Henry Irving's melancholy was appalling. I remember
feeling as if I had laughed in church when he came to the foot of the
stairs leading to my dressing-room, and caught me sliding down the
banisters! He smiled at me, but didn't seem able to get over it.

"Lacy," he said some days later, "what do you think! I found her the
other day sliding down the banisters!"