ts in each piece, and we did quick changes at the
side worthy of Fregoli! The whole thing was quite a success, and after
playing it at the Colosseum we started on a round of visits.

In "Home for the Holidays," which came first on our little programme,
Kate played Letitia Melrose, a young girl of about seventeen, who is
expecting her young brother "home for the holidays." Letitia, if I
remember right, was discovered soliloquizing somewhat after this
fashion: "Dear little Harry! Left all alone in the world, as we are, I
feel such responsibility about him. Shall I find him changed, I wonder,
after two years' absence? He has not answered my letters lately. I hope
he got the cake and toffee I sent him, but I've not heard a word." At
this point I entered as Harry, but instead of being the innocent little
schoolboy of Letitia's fond imagination, Harry appears in loud peg-top
trousers (peg-top trousers were very fashionable in 1860), with a big
cigar in his mouth, and his hat worn jauntily on one side. His talk is
all of racing, betting, and fighting. Letty is struck dumb with
astonishment at first, but the awful change, which two years have
effected, gradually dawns on her. She implores him to turn from his
idle, foolish ways. Master Harry sinks on his knees by her side, but
just as his sister is about to rejoice and kiss him, he looks up in her
face and bursts into loud laughter. She is much exasperated, and,
threatening to send some one to him who will talk to him in a very
different fashion, she leaves the stage. Master Hopeful thereupon dons
his dressing-gown and smoking cap, and, lying full length upon the sofa,
begins to have a quiet smoke. He is interrupted by the appearance of a
most wonderful and grim old woman in blue spectacles--Mrs. Terrorbody.
This is no other than "Sister Letty," dressed up in order to frighten
the youth out of his wits. She talks and talks, and, after painting
vivid pictures of what will become of him unless he alters his "vile
ways," leaves him, but not before she succeeds in making him shed tears,
half of fright and half of anger. Later on, Sister Letty, looking from
the window, sees a grand fight going on between Master Harry and a
butcher-boy, and then Harry enters with his coat off, his sleeves tucked
up, explaining in a state of blazing excitement that he "_had_ to fight
that butcher-boy, because he had struck a little girl in the street."
Letty sees that the lad has a fine nature in spite