My father was Miss O'Neill's Romeo throughout her whole theatrical
career, during which no other Juliet was tolerated by the English
public. This amiable and excellent woman was always an attached friend
of our family, and one day, when she was about to take leave of me, at
the end of a morning visit, I begged her to let my father have the
pleasure of seeing her, and ran to his study to tell him whom I had with
me. He followed me hastily to the drawing-room, and stopping at the
door, extended his arms towards her, exclaiming, "Ah, Juliet!" Lady
Becher ran to him and embraced him with a pretty, affectionate grace,
and the scene was pathetical as well as comical, for they were both
white-haired, she being considerably upward of sixty and he of seventy
years old; but she still retained the slender elegance of her exquisite
figure, and he some traces of his pre-eminent personal beauty.

My mother had a great admiration and personal regard for Lady Becher,
and told me an anecdote of her early life which transmitted those
feelings of hers to me. Lord F----, eldest son of the Earl of E----, a
personally and mentally attractive young man, fell desperately in love
with Miss O'Neill, who was (what the popular theatrical heroine of the
day always is) the realization of their ideal to the youth, male and
female, of her time, the stage star of her contemporaries. Lord F----'s
family had nothing to say against the character, conduct, or personal
endowments of the beautiful, actress who had enchanted, to such serious
purpose as marriage, the heir of their house; but much, reasonably and
rightly enough, against marriages disproportionate to such a degree as
that, and the objectionable nature of the young woman's peculiar
circumstances and public calling. Both Miss O'Neill, however, and Lord
F---- were enough in earnest in their mutual regard to accept the test
of a year's separation and suspension of all intercourse. She remained
to utter herself in Juliet to the English public, and her lover went and
travelled abroad, both believing in themselves and each other. No
letters or communication passed between them; but toward the end of
their year of probation vague rumors came flying to England of the life
of dissipation led by the young man, and of the unworthy companions with
whom he entertained the most intimate relations. After this came more
explicit tales of positive entanglement with one particular person, and
reports of an enti