petticoats, in defiance of the fact that classical parts should not be
dressed in a superfluity of raiment. But if the petticoats were full of
starch, the voice was full of pathos--and the dignity, simplicity, and
womanliness of Mrs. Charles Kean's Hermione could not have been marred
by a far more grotesque costume.

There is something, I suppose, in a woman's nature which always makes
her remember how she was dressed at any specially eventful moment of her
life, and I can see myself, as though it were yesterday, in the little
red-and-silver dress I wore as Mamilius. Mrs. Grieve, the
dresser--"Peter Grieve-us," as we children called her--had pulled me
into my very pink tights (they were by no means _tight_ but very baggy,
according to the pictures of me), and my mother had arranged my hair in
sausage curls on each side of my head in even more perfect order and
regularity than usual. Besides my clothes, I had a beautiful "property"
to be proud of. This was a go-cart, which had been made in the theater
by Mr. Bradshaw, and was an exact copy of a child's toy as depicted on a
Greek vase. It was my duty to drag this little cart about the stage, and
on the first night, when Mr. Kean as Leontes told me to "go play," I
obeyed his instructions with such vigor that I tripped over the handle
and came down on my back! A titter ran through the house, and I felt
that my career as an actress was ruined forever. Even now I remember how
bitterly I wept, and how deeply humiliated I felt. But the little
incident, so mortifying to me, did not spoil my first appearance
altogether. _The Times_ of May 1, 1856, was kind enough to call me
"vivacious and precocious," and "a worthy relative of my sister Kate,"
and my parents were pleased (although they would not show it too much),
and Mrs. Kean gave me a pat on the back. Father and Kate were both in
the cast, too, I ought to have said, and the Queen, Prince Albert, and
the Princess Royal were all in a box on the first night.