e gave me a good fright one night,
and I never forgot it, though I will not say I never laughed again. I
think it was in "The Double Marriage," the first play put on at the New
Queen's. As Rose de Beaurepaire, I wore a white muslin Directoire dress
and looked absurdly young. There was one "curtain" which used to
convulse Wyndham. He had a line, "Whose child is this?" and there was I,
looking a mere child myself, and with a bad cold in my head too,
answering: "It's _bine_!" The very thought of it used to send us off
into fits of laughter. We hung on to chairs, helpless, limp, and
incapable. Mrs. Wigan said if we did it again, she would go in front and
hiss us, and she carried out her threat. The very next time we laughed,
a loud hiss rose from the stagebox. I was simply paralyzed with terror.

Dear old Mrs. Wigan! The stories that have been told about her would
fill a book! She was exceedingly plain, rather like a toad, yet,
perversely, she was more vain of her looks than of her acting. In the
theater she gave herself great airs and graces, and outside it hobnobbed
with duchesses and princesses.

This fondness for aristocratic society gave additional point to the
story that one day a blear-eyed old cabman in capes and muffler
descended from the box of a disreputable-looking growler, and inquired
at the stage-door for Leonora Pincott.

"Any lady 'ere of that name?"

"No."

"Well, I think she's married, and changed her name, but she's 'ere right
enough. Tell 'er I won't keep 'er a minute. I'm 'er--old father!"

In "Still Waters Run Deep" I was rather good as Mrs. Mildmay, and the
rest of the cast were admirable. Mrs. Wigan was, of course, Mrs.
Sternhold. Wyndham, who was afterwards to be such a splendid Mildmay,
played Hawksley, and Alfred Wigan was Mildmay, as he had been in the
original production. When the play is revived now, much of it seems very
old-fashioned, but the office scene strikes one as freshly and strongly
as when it was first acted. I don't think that any drama which is vital
and _essential_ can ever be old-fashioned.

MY FIRST IMPRESSION OF HENRY IRVING

One very foggy night in December 1867--it was Boxing Day, I think--I
acted for the first time with Henry Irving. This ought to have been a
great event in my life, but at the time it passed me by and left "no
wrack behind." Ever anxious to improve on the truth, which is often
devoid of all sensationalism, people have told a story of Henry Irving