at once that I should never be
able to act in it. I called out to Mrs. Nettleship and Alice Carr, who
were in the stalls, and implored them to lighten it of some of the
jewels.

"Oh, do keep it as it is," they answered, "it looks splendid."

"I can't breathe in it, much less act in it. Please send some one up to
cut off a few stones."

I went on with my part, and then, during a wait, two of Mrs.
Nettleship's assistants came on to the stage and snipped off a jewel
here and there. When they had filled a basket, I began to feel better!

But when they tried to lift that basket, their united efforts could not
move it!

On one occasion I wore a dress made in eight hours! During the first
week of the run of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" at His Majesty's, there
was a fire in my dressing-room--an odd fire which was never accounted
for. In the morning they found the dress that I had worn as Mrs. Page
burnt to a cinder. A messenger from His Majesty's went to tell my
daughter, who had made the ill-fated dress:

"Miss Terry will, I suppose, have to wear one of our dresses to-night.
Perhaps you could make her a new one by the end of the week."

"Oh, that will be all right," said Edy, bluffing, "I'll make her a dress
by to-night." She has since told me that she did not really think she
_could_ make it in time!

She had at this time a workshop in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. All
hands were called into the service, and half an hour after the message
came from the theater the new dress was started. That was at 10.30.
Before 7 p.m. the new dress was in my dressing-room at His Majesty's
Theater.

And best of all, it was a great improvement on the dress that had been
burned! It stood the wear and tear of the first run of "Merry Wives" and
of all the revivals, and is still as fresh as paint!

That very successful dress cost no time. Another very successful
dress--the white one that I wore in the Court Scene in "A Winter's
Tale," cost no money. My daughter made it out of material of which a
sovereign must have covered the cost.

My daughter says to know what _not_ to do is the secret of making stage
dresses. It is not a question of time or of money, but of omission.

One of the best "audiences" that actor or actress could wish for was Mr.
Gladstone. He used often to come and see the play at the Lyceum from a
little seat in the O.P. entrance, and he nearly always arrived five
minutes before the curtain went up. One night I t