what yours was. Personally, there seems to be all the stuff in her of
which an actress is made; will she some day stumble upon the discovery of
how to bring her own individual flame and force to bear upon her art? I
should think it not unlikely, and, altogether, I feel as though I should
take a more hopeful view of her intellectually than you do. You see, my
dear Eustace, you men never realise how clever we women are, how fast we
learn, and how quickly we catch up hints from all quarters under heaven
and improve upon them. An actress so young and so sympathetic as Isabel
Bretherton must still be very much of an unknown quantity dramatically. I
know you think that the want of training is fatal, and that popularity
will stereotype her faults. It may be so; but I am inclined to think,
from my first sight of her, that she is a nature that will gather from
life rather what stimulates it than what dulls and vulgarises it.
Altogether, when I compare my first impressions of her with the image of
her left by your letters, I feel that I have been pleasantly surprised.
Only in the matter of intelligence. Otherwise it has, of course, been
your descriptions of her that have planted and nurtured in me that strong
sense of attraction which blossomed into liking at the moment of personal
contact.'

* * * * *

'_August_ 10.

'This afternoon we have been out in the gondola belonging to this
modest establishment, with our magnificent gondolier, Piero, and his
boy to convey us to the Lido. I got Miss Bretherton to talk to me about
her Jamaica career. She made us all laugh with her accounts of the
blood-and-thunder pieces in which the audiences at the Kingston theatre
revelled. She seems generally to have played the Bandit's Daughter, the