ter_ afterwards. This will be an improvement upon my old
reading of the part. She must be always _merry_ and by turns
scornful, tormenting, vexed, self-communing, absent, melting,
teasing, brilliant, indignant, _sad-merry_, thoughtful, withering,
gentle, humorous, and gay, Gay, _Gay_! Protecting (to Hero),
motherly, very intellectual--a gallant creature and complete in
mind and feature."

After a run of two hundred and fifty nights, "Much Ado," although it was
still drawing fine houses, was withdrawn as we were going to America in
the autumn (of 1883) and Henry wanted to rehearse the plays that we were
to do in the States by reviving them in London at the close of the
summer season. It was during these revivals that I played Janette in "The
Lyons Mail"--not a big part, and not well suited to me, but I played it
well enough to support my theory that whatever I have _not_ been, I
_have_ been a useful actress.

I always associate "The Lyons Mail" with old Mead, whose performance of
the father, Jerome Lesurques, was one of the most impressive things
that this fine actor ever did with us. (Before Henry was ever heard of,
Mead had played Hamlet at Drury Lane!) Indeed when he "broke up," Henry
put aside "The Lyons Mail" for many years because he dreaded playing
Lesurques' scene with his father without Mead.

In the days just before the break-up, which came about because Mead was
old, and--I hope there is no harm in saying of him what can be said of
many men who have done finely in the world--too fond of "the wine when
it is red," Henry use to suffer great anxiety in the scene, because he
never knew what Mead was going to do or say next. When Jerome Lesurques
is forced to suspect his son of crime, he has a line:

"Am I mad, or dreaming? Would I were."

Mead one night gave a less poetic reading:

"Am I mad or _drunk_? Would I were!"

It will be remembered by those who saw the play that Lesurques, an
innocent man, will not commit the Roman suicide of honor at his father's
bidding, and refuses to take up his pistol from the table. "What! you
refuse to die by your own hands, do you?" says the elder Lesurques.
"Then die like a dog by mine!" (producing a pistol from his pocket).

One night, after having delivered the line with his usual force and
impressiveness, Mead, after prolonged fumbling in his coat-tail pockets,
added another:

"D---, b----! God bless my soul! Where's the pistol