IV

A SIX-YEAR VACATION

1868-1874


My disappearance from the stage must have been a heavy blow to my father
and mother, who had urged me to return in 1866 and were quite certain
that I had a great future. For the first time for years they had no
child in the theater. Marion and Floss, who were afterward to adopt the
stage as a profession, were still at school; Kate had married; and none
of their sons had shown any great aptitude for acting. Fred, who was
afterwards to do so well, was at this time hardly out of petticoats.

Perhaps it was because I knew they would oppose me that I left the stage
quite quietly and secretly. It seemed to outsiders natural, if
regrettable, that I should follow Kate's example. But I was troubling
myself little about what people were thinking and saying. "They are
saying--what are they saying? Let them be saying!"

Then a dreadful thing happened. A body was found in the river,--the dead
body of a young woman very fair and slight and tall. Every one thought
that it was my body.

I had gone away without a word. No one knew where I was. My own father
identified the corpse, and Floss and Marion, at their boarding-school,
were put into mourning. Then mother went. She kept her head under the