at was often a fault there.
Because Henry was slow, the others took their time from him, and the
result was bad.

The lovely scene of the vicarage parlor, in which we used a harpsichord
and were accused of pedantry for our pains, did not look so well at the
Lyceum as at the Court. The stage was too big for it.

The critics said that I played Olivia better at the Lyceum, but I did
not feel this myself.

At first Henry did not rehearse the Vicar at all well. One day when he
was stamping his foot very much, as if he was Matthias in "The Bells,"
my little Edy, who was a terrible child _and_ a wonderful critic, said:

"Don't go on like that, Henry. Why don't you talk as you do to me and
Teddy? At home you _are_ the Vicar."

The child's frankness did not offend Henry, because it was illuminating.
A blind man had changed his Shylock; a little child changed his Vicar.
When the first night came he gave a simple, lovable performance. Many
people now understood and liked him as they had never done before. One
of the things I most admired in it was his sense of the period.

In this, as in other plays, he used to make his entrance in the _skin_
of the part. No need for him to rattle a ladder at the side to get up
excitement and illusion as Macready is said to have done. He walked on,
and was the simple-minded old clergyman, just as he had walked on a
prince in "Hamlet," a king in "Charles I.," and a saint in "Becket."

A very handsome woman, descended from Mrs. Siddons and looking exactly
like her, played the gipsy in "Olivia." The likeness was of no use,
because the possessor of it had no talent. What a pity!

"Olivia" has always been a family play. Edy and Ted walked on the stage
for the first time in the Court "Olivia." In later years Ted played
Moses and Edy made her first appearance in a speaking part as Polly
Flamborough, and has since played both Sophia and the Gipsy. My brother
Charlie's little girl Beatrice made her first appearance as Bill, my
sister Floss played Olivia on a provincial tour, and my sister Marion
played it at the Lyceum when I was ill.

I saw Floss play it, and took from her a lovely and sincere bit of
"business." In the third act, where the Vicar has found his erring
daughter and has come to take her away from the inn, I had always
hesitated at my entrance as if I were not quite sure what reception my
father would give me after what had happened. Floss in the same
situation came running in and we