g to her foot, she owed her rent, she was starving.
Wouldn't Mr. Taylor tell the management what dismissal meant to her?
Wouldn't he get her taken back? Mr. Taylor would try, and Mr. Taylor
gave her fifteen pounds in the street then and there!

Mrs. Taylor wasn't surprised. She only wondered it wasn't thirty!

"Tom the Adapter" was the Terry dramatist for many years. Kate played in
many of the pieces which, some openly, some deviously, he brought into
the English stage from the French. When Kate married, my turn came, and
the interest that he had taken in my sister's talent he transferred in
part to me, although I don't think he ever thought me her equal. Floss
made her first appearance in the child's part in Taylor's play "A Sheep
in Wolf's Clothing," and Marion her first appearance as Ophelia in his
version of "Hamlet"--perhaps "perversion" would be an honester
description! Taylor introduced a "fool" who went about whacking people,
including the Prince, by way of brightening up the tragedy.

I never saw my sister's Ophelia, but I know it was a fine send-off for
her and that she must have looked lovely. Oh, what a pretty young girl
she was! Her golden-brown eyes exactly matched her hair, and she was the
winsomest thing imaginable! From the first she showed talent.

From Taylor's letters I find--and, indeed, without them I could not have
forgotten--that the good, kind friend never ceased to work in our
interests. "I have recommended Flossy to play Lady Betty in the
country." "I have written to the Bancrofts in favor of Forbes-Robertson
for Bassanio." (Evidently this was in answer to a request from me.
Naturally, the Bancrofts wanted someone of higher standing, but was I
wrong about J. Forbes-Robertson? I think not!) "The mother came to see
me the other day. I was extremely sorry to hear the bad news of Tom."
(Tom was the black sheep of our family, but a fascinating wretch, all
the same.) "I rejoice to think of your coming back," he writes another
time, "to show the stage what an actress should be." "A thousand thanks
for the photographs. I like the profile best. It is most Paolo
Veronesish and gives the right notion of your Portia, although the color
hardly suggests the golden gorgeousness of your dress and the blonde
glory of the hair and complexion.... I hope you have seen the quiet
little boxes at ----'s foolish article." (This refers to an article
which attacked my Portia in _Blackwood's Magazine_.) "Of course, if