andladies looked her up.
Happily, a brother-in-law met her in a penniless state and took her home.
Unhappily, at his house she met Inchbald, an indifferent and badly-paid
actor. They were immediately married, and the girl rejoiced to think
that she was an actress, and about to realize the ambition of her youth.
It was no small part which the Suffolk girl felt herself qualified to
fill. On the 4th of September, 1772, she made her debut as Cordelia to
her husband's Lear. In 1821 Mrs. Inchbald, famed for her 'simple story,'
which took the town by storm, was buried in Kensington Churchyard. But
before she got there she had to endure much. At that time theatrical
performers were much worse paid than they are now, when, as Mr. Irving
tells us, any decent-looking young man, with a good suit of clothes, can
command his five or six pounds a week. Mrs. Inchbald and her husband had
to drink of the cup of poverty, and its consequent degradation, to the
dregs. On one occasion they took it into their heads to go to France,
believing that they could make money--he by painting, she by writing.
The scheme, as was to be expected, did not answer, and they were landed
on their return somewhere near Brighton, in the September of 1776,
literally without a crust of bread. On one occasion it was stated that
they dined off raw turnips, stolen from a field as they wandered past.
Next year, however, the world began to mend so far as they were
concerned.

At Manchester they met the Siddonses and J. P. Kemble, and one result of
that meeting was peace and prosperity. At this time also the lady's
husband died, and that was no great loss, as the lady was far too
independent for a wife. Yet, if the great Kemble had proposed to her, as
she used to tell Fanny Kemble, she would have jumped at him. To the last
her habits of life were most penurious. She spent nothing on dress, she
was indifferent in the matter of eating and drinking, and when she was
making as much as from 500 to 900 pounds by a new play, in order to save
a trifle she would sit in the depth of winter without a fire. Only fancy
any of our later lady-novelists thus ascetic and self-denying. The idea
is absurd. She was to the last what Godwin described her, a mixture of
lady and milkmaid. And yet the lady had ambition. She had an idea that
she might be Lady Bunbury. However, she marred her chance, at the same
time missing a rich Mr. Glover, who offered a marriage settlement o