great deed of her life: she stepped
secretly into the Norwich coach, and went to London. The days that
followed were full of hazard and adventure, but the details of them are
uncertain. She was a girl of eighteen, absolutely alone, and
astonishingly attractive--"tall," we are told, "slender, straight, of the
purest complexion, and most beautiful features; her hair of a golden
auburn, her eyes full at once of spirit and sweetness;" and it was only
to be expected that, in such circumstances, romance and daring would
soon give place to discomfort and alarm. She attempted in vain to obtain
a theatrical engagement; she found herself, more than once, obliged to
shift her lodging; and at last, after ten days of trepidation, she was
reduced to apply for help to her married sisters. This put an end to her
difficulties, but, in spite of her efforts to avoid notice, her beauty
had already attracted attention, and she had received a letter from a
stranger, with whom she immediately entered into correspondence. She had
all the boldness of innocence, and, in addition, a force of character
which brought her safely through the risks she ran. While she was still
in her solitary lodging, a theatrical manager, named Dodd, attempted to
use his position as a cover for seduction. She had several interviews
with him alone, and the story goes that, in the last, she snatched up a
basin of hot water and dashed it in his face. But she was not to go
unprotected for long; for within two months of her arrival in London she
had married Mr. Inchbald.

The next twelve years of Mrs. Inchbald's life were passed amid the rough
and tumble of the eighteenth-century stage. Her husband was thirty-seven
when she married him, a Roman Catholic like herself, and an actor who
depended for his living upon ill-paid and uncertain provincial
engagements. Mrs. Inchbald conquered her infirmity of speech and threw
herself into her husband's profession. She accompanied him to Bristol,
to Scotland, to Liverpool, to Birmingham, appearing in a great variety
of roles, but never with any very conspicuous success. The record of
these journeys throws an interesting light upon the conditions of the
provincial companies of those days. Mrs. Inchbald and her companions
would set out to walk from one Scotch town to another; they would think
themselves lucky if they could climb on to a passing cart, to arrive at
last, drenched with rain perhaps, at some wretched hostelry. But this
ki