Newcastle, Sunderland, and other places, which formed a sort of
theatrical circuit in the northern counties, throughout which he was
well known and generally respected.

In his company my aunt Dall found employment, and in his daughter, Fanny
Kemble, since well known as Mrs. Robert Arkwright, an inseparable friend
and companion. My aunt lived with Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Kemble, who were
excellent, worthy people. They took good care of the two young girls
under their charge, this linsey-woolsey Rosalind and Celia--their own
beautiful and most rarely endowed daughter, and her light-hearted,
lively companion; and I suppose that a merrier life than that of these
lasses, in the midst of their quaint theatrical tasks and homely
household duties, was seldom led by two girls in any sphere of life.
They learned and acted their parts, devised and executed, with small
means and great industry, their dresses; made pies and puddings, and
patched and darned, in the morning, and by dint of paste and rouge
became heroines in the evening; and withal were well-conducted, good
young things, full of the irrepressible spirits of their age, and
turning alike their hard home work and light stage labor into fun. Fanny
had inherited the beauty of her father's family, which in her most
lovely countenance had a character of childlike simplicity and serene
sweetness that made it almost angelic.

Far on in middle age she retained this singularly tender beauty, which
added immensely to the exquisite effect of her pathetic voice in her
incomparable rendering of the ballads she composed (the poetry as well
as the music being often her own), and to which her singing of them gave
so great a fashion at one time in the great London world. It was in vain
that far better musicians, with far finer voices, attempted to copy her
inimitable musical recitation; nobody ever sang like her, and still less