fulfill an engagement at the Haymarket Theater, of which Mr. Buckstone
was still the manager and Sothern the great attraction. I had played
Gertrude Howard in "The Little Treasure" during the stock season at
Bristol, and when Mr. Buckstone wanted to do the piece at the Haymarket,
he was told about me. I was fifteen at this time, and my sense of humor
was as yet ill-developed. I was fond of "larking" and merry enough, but
I hated being laughed _at_! At any rate, I could see no humor in Mr.
Sothern's jokes at my expense. He played my lover in "The Little
Treasure," and he was always teasing me--pulling my hair, making me
forget my part and look like an idiot. But for dear old Mr. Howe, who
was my "father" in the same piece, I should not have enjoyed acting in
it at all, but he made amends for everything. We had a scene together in
which he used to cry, and I used to cry--oh, it was lovely!

Why I should never have liked Sothern, with his wonderful hands and blue
eyes, Sothern, whom every one found so fascinating and delightful, I
cannot say, and I record it as discreditable to me, not to him. It was
just a case of "I do not like thee, Dr. Fell." I admired him--I could
not help doing that--but I dreaded his jokes, and thought some of them
very cruel.

Another thing I thought cruel at this time was the scandal which was
talked in the theater. A change for the better has taken place in this
respect--at any rate, in conduct. People behave better now, and in our
profession, carried on as it is in the public eye, behavior is
everything. At the Haymarket there were simply no bounds to what was
said in the greenroom. One night I remember gathering up my skirts (we
were, I think, playing "The Rivals" at the time), making a curtsey, as
Mr. Chippendale, one of the best actors in old comedy I ever knew, had
taught me, and sweeping out of the room with the famous line from