"How like you that, then?" she cried. "That was my way in the days
when Sally Siddons would turn green at the name of Polly Hinton.
It's a fine play, is Pizarro."

"And who wrote it, ma'am?"

"Who wrote it? I never heard. What matter who did the writing of
it! But there are some great lines for one who knows how they
should be spoken."

"And you play no longer, ma'am?"

"No, Jim, I left the boards when--when I was weary of them. But my
heart goes back to them sometimes. It seems to me there is no smell
like that of the hot oil in the footlights and of the oranges in the
pit. But you are sad, Jim."

"It was but the thought of that poor woman and her child."

"Tut, never think about her! I will soon wipe her from your mind.
This is 'Miss Priscilla Tomboy,' from The Romp. You must conceive
that the mother is speaking, and that the forward young minx is
answering.

And she began a scene between the two of them, so exact in voice and
manner that it seemed to us as if there were really two folk before
us: the stern old mother with her hand up like an ear-trumpet, and
her flouncing, bouncing daughter. Her great figure danced about
with a wonderful lightness, and she tossed her head and pouted her
lips as she answered back to the old, bent figure that addressed