me insupportable suffering, but I was so afraid that they would be taken
away if I complained, that every evening I used to put up valorously
with the torture. The piece was called "If the Cap Fits," but my boots
were the fit with which I was most concerned!

Years later the author of the little play, Mr. Edmund Yates, the editor
of _The World_--wrote to me about my performance as the tiger:

"When on June 13, 1859 (to no one else in the world would I breathe
the date!) I saw a very young lady play a tiger in a comedietta of
mine called 'If the Cap Fits,' I had no idea that that precocious
child had in her the germ of such an artist as she has since proved
herself. What I think of her performance of Portia she will see in
_The World_."

In "The Merchant of Venice" though I had no speaking part, I was firmly
convinced that the basket of doves which I carried on my shoulder was
the principal attraction of the scene in which it appeared. The other
little boys and girls in the company regarded those doves with eyes of
bitter envy. One little chorus boy, especially, though he professed a
personal devotion of the tenderest kind for me, could never quite get
over those doves, and his romantic sentiments cooled considerably when I
gained my proud position as dove-bearer. Before, he had shared his
sweets with me, but now he transferred both sweets and affections to
some more fortunate little girl. Envy, after all, is the death of love!

Mr. Harley was the Launcelot Gobbo in "The Merchant of Venice"--an old
gentleman, and almost as great a fop as Mr. Byrn. He was always smiling;
his two large rows of teeth were so _very_ good! And he had pompous,
grandiloquent manners, and wore white gaiters and a long hanging