of her progenitors was ever upon the stage,
nor does it appear that she was predisposed to that vocation by early
reading or training. Her elder sisters had adopted that pursuit, and
perhaps she was impelled toward it by the force of example and domestic
association, readily affecting her innate latent faculty for the
dramatic art. Her first appearance on the stage was made at Newark, New
Jersey, in 1873, in a play entitled _Across the Continent_, in which she
acted a small part, named Clara, for one night only, to fill the place
of a performer who had been suddenly disabled by illness. Her readiness
and her positive talent were clearly revealed in that effort, and it was
thereupon determined in a family council that she should proceed; so she
was soon regularly embarked upon the life of an actress. Her first
appearance on the New York stage was made a little later, in 1873, at
Wood's museum (it became Daly's theatre in 1879), when she played a
small part in a piece called _Thorough-bred_. During the seasons of
1873-74-75 she was associated with the Arch Street theatre,
Philadelphia,--that being her first regular professional engagement.
(John Drew, with whom, professionally, Ada Rehan has been long
associated, made his first appearance in the same season, at the same
house.) She then went to Macaulay's theatre, Louisville, where she acted
for one season. From Louisville she went to Albany, as a member of John
W. Albaugh's company, and with that manager she remained two seasons,
acting sometimes in Albany and sometimes in Baltimore. After that she
was for a few months with Fanny Davenport. The earlier part of her
career involved professional endeavours in company with the wandering
stars, and she acted in a variety of plays with Edwin Booth, Adelaide
Neilson, John McCullough, Mrs. Bowers, Lawrence Barrett, John Brougham,
Edwin Adams, Mrs. Lander, and John T. Raymond. From the first she was
devotedly fond of Shakespeare, and all the Shakespearian characters
allotted to her were studied and acted by her with eager interest and
sympathy. While thus employed in the provincial stock she enacted
Ophelia, Cordelia, Desdemona, Celia, Olivia, and Lady Anne, and in each
of those parts she was conspicuously good. The attention of Augustin
Daly was first attracted to her in December 1877, when she was acting at
Albaugh's theatre in Albany, the play being _Katharine and Petruchio_
(Garrick's version of the _Taming of the Shrew_), and