f business in this town!"

Unspeakably wounded, I asked, timidly: "But if I work hard and learn to
act well, can't I hold a position as well as anyone else?"

She looked contemptuously at me, and then answered: "No, you must be a
fool if you suppose that after standing about in the ballet for months on
end that Cleveland will ever accept you in a respectable line of
business. You've got to go to some other place, where you are not known,
and then come back as a stranger, if you want to be accepted here."

A dull anger began to burn in me--there was something so suggestive of
shame in the words, "Some other place, where you are not known." I had
nothing to hide. I could work, and by and by I should be able to act as
well as any of them--better perhaps. I felt my teeth come together with a
snap, the bull-dog instinct was aroused. I looked very steadily at the
sneering speaker and said: "I shall never leave this theatre till I am
leading woman." And they all laughed, but it was a promise, and all these
provoking years I was by way of keeping it. The undertaking was hard,
perhaps it was foolish, but of the group of women who laughed at me that
day every one of them lived to see my promise kept to the letter. When I
left Cleveland it was to go as leading woman to Cincinnati, one season
before I entered New York.

But after I had at last escaped the actual ballet, and was holding a
recognized position, I was still treated quite _en haut--en bas_ by the
management. Mr. and Mrs. Ellsler had acquired the old-shoe habit. I was
the easy old dramatic slipper, which it was pleasant to slip on so
easily, but doubly pleasant to be able to shake off without effort.

That you may thoroughly understand, I will explain that I was an
excellent _Amelia_ in "The Robbers" when a rather insignificant star
played the piece, but when a Booth or some star of like magnitude
appeared as _Charles de Moor_, then the easy slipper was dropped off, and
Mrs. Ellsler herself played _Amelia_. Any part belonging to me by right
could be claimed by that lady, if she fancied it, and if she wearied of
it, it came back to me. When we acted in the country in the summer-time,
at Akron or Canton, where there were real theatres, she played
_Parthenia_ or _Pauline_ in the "Lady of Lyons," or any other big part;
but if the next town was smaller, I played _Parthenia_ or _Pauline_ or
what not. Because I had once been in the ballet I had become an old pair
of dramati