almost worth while to quarrel with him, because when we made it up he
was sure to give me some "treat"--a luncheon, a present, or a drive. We
both felt we needed some jollification because we had suffered so much
from being estranged. He used to say that there should be no such word
as "quarrel," and one morning he wrote me a letter with the following
postscript written in big letters:

"THERE DO EXIST SUCH THINGS AS HONEST MISUNDERSTANDINGS.

"There, my Eleanora Delicia" (this was his name for me, my real,
full name being Ellen Alicia), "stick that up in some place where
you will often see it. Better put it on _your looking-glass_. And
if you can once get those words into your noddle, it will save you
a world of unhappiness."

I think he was quite right about this. Would that he had been as right
in his theories about stage management! He was a rare one for realism.
He had _preached_ it in all his plays, and when he produced a one-act
play, "Rachael the Reaper," in front of "The Wandering Heir," he began
to practice what he preached--jumped into reality up to the neck!

He began by buying _real_ pigs, _real_ sheep, a _real_ goat, and a
_real_ dog. _Real_ litter was strewn all over the stage, much to the
inconvenience of the unreal farm-laborer, Charles Kelly, who could not
compete with it, although he looked as like a farmer as any actor could.
They all looked their parts better than the real wall which ran across
the stage, piteously naked of _real_ shadows, owing to the absence of
the _real_ sun, and, of course, deficient in the painted shadows which
make a painted wall look so like the real thing.