prise to her to learn, a few days later, that instead of writing a will, the lawyer had secured from its new owner a ten-year lease for her mother on the house that had been hers.

"It should never have been allowed!" Caroline protested to sympathetic friends. "I blame the lawyer greatly. Poor, dear mother's mind, you know! It is not as if she could possibly live to go back there, though why she should wish to I cannot imagine. It seems a little, just a little, ungrateful, does n't it? Fancy being hampered with a ten-year lease!"

But for once Caroline found herself in error. The widow seemed to have every intention of living to go back there. In fact, two days after the lease was signed, she rejected her dainty luncheon-tray in toto, and demanded two broiled lambchops.

THE judge's ghost, if it ever cares to revisit mundane haunts, must be rather startled by the changes that have taken place in its former dwelling. Outwardly, the house behind the elms is much the same. Its new roof does not vary by a shingle from its old roof. Only a few lines of mortar, whiter than the rest, show where bricklayers have repaired certain ravages upon its dignified front, and these the woodbine, growing green again from stout, undaunted roots, is doing its best to cover. Nevertheless, the changes are there, noticeable as much to the ear as to

the eye.

All day long the voices of children echo through the house, coming not only from the garden, but from the nursery up-stairs, where the daughter of the shabby lawyer next door teaches kindergarten, with the aid of Bo Peep and her tailless flock and the jumping cows.

As for the judge's bedroom, his ghost must turn from it in dismay toward a

more suitable resting-place. Gone are the walnut monuments, the majestic state-bed of his forefathers, and their places are usurped by slender furniture of cream enamel, painted in rosebuds, which Caroline finds distinctly trivial.

Indeed, the entire effect of the house is somewhat trivial; muslin ruffles at the windows, plant's in gay red pots, flowered walls; nothing really handsome and substantial and suitable for a judge's widow, with the exception, possibly, of the old pianoforte, recovered from a second-hand shop, whose mild, uncertain tinkle may be heard at all hours by the passer-by.

Caroline has been forced to the reluctant conclusion that her mother herself is somewhat trivial; not a woman of deep feeling, perhaps, certainly lacking all sense of the fitness of things. Fancy preferring, at sixty-odd, to live alone (except for servants), in a street where there are shops; to wear white muslin instead of decent crape; to eat half one's meals out of doors in view of the entire neighborhood-and such a neighborhood! Noisy children always about, women in gingham aprons calling pleasantries over the back. fence, amorous couples of the vicinity conducting their affairs in the garden, quite as if it were a people's park. No reserve, no privacy, none of that gradual fading out of life which is to be expected of bereaved aged ladies. The judge's widow, in fact, is growing plump.

Only Solomon remains to uphold the dignity of the establishment-Solomon, who during his master's lifetime managed to absorb something of the judicial manner, now enhanced by an increasing portliness of person and stiffness of carriage. He receives Caroline on her conscientious daily visits with a certain stately enthusiasm reserved for his equals, tempered somewhat, however, by the natural con

descension of the victor.

SHA

HAKSPERE was not regularly acted anywhere in London, although now and then one of his plays would be given as a "great production." The first time I saw Sir Henry Irving was in his revival of "Romeo and Juliet." The scenery was gorgeous, and much of the acting was fine; but when we went around on the stage at the end of the play, and Sir Henry, benign and courteous to a young and unimportant beginner, asked me how I liked his performance, I answered energetically:

"Oh, Mr. Irving, I wish I had seen you in something else."

My friends, startled, tried to jump into the breach to explain my speech away, but Sir Henry put them back with a gesture,

and said, "She is right; the part does n't. suit me at all."

Then he turned to me, with the eagerness and simplicity of a boy, and talked with me about the production. Several times during coming years he asked me to play at the Lyceum in Shaksperian or other poetical plays, but, unfortunately, on account of previous engagements or for other reasons, I could never do so.

Another part in which I did not care for Irving was Macbeth. We discussed that thoroughly, too, a few years later, after my return from France. On that occasion, also, with the modesty of the truly great, he admitted he had not projected the part as he would have desired, but that it interested him deeply. As we

sat talking, he began to recite speeches and whole scenes of it, I answering him. When we first began to talk, he did not see Lady Macbeth at all as I did, but later, when I did battle for my view, he said: "No one but Siddons could act such a conception of the part. Of course, if you could, you would have a right to your statue," alluding to the statue of Sarah Siddons, the greatest of English tragedians, which stands in Westminster Abbey. One of the most cherished friends of the Tennants of Whitehall was the greatest of all French actors of comedy, the late Constant Coquelin, the style of whose art was, in its way, as classical as the writing of Molière, whose most perfect exponent Coquelin was. I had never met him, though he had seen me act in London in the part of Hester Prynne in my own production of a dramatization of Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter," in which Mr., now Sir, Johnstone Forbes-Robertson was playing Dimmesdale, both performances winning high praise. Some business caused me to make a quick trip to New York. In my absence Mrs. Tennant sent repeatedly to my mother, who was with me in London at the time and who remained there during my journey to America, inquiring the date of my return, and asking to be apprised of it at once. On my return, I found awaiting me an urgent message from Mrs. Tennant, asking my mother and me to dine with her that same night, hinting at an important matter that she desired to make known by word of mouth. At her house that evening I saw M. Coquelin for the first time off the stage. In introducing him to me, Mrs. Tennant said: "Sit there on that sofa, and let M. Coquelin tell you what he has to say. Do not answer until you have thought well of what he says; it is for your great good."

I began to expect some valuable criticism of my work, but he explained to me that he expected to open a theater of his own in Paris, and asked me if I would be willing to play there in French with him. He thought I could soon make my accent good enough for that purpose. He had a

simple and straightforward appreciation of his own value, and said that he was sure my acting with him in Paris in that way would be worth my while from every point of view.

Both Mrs. Tennant and her daughter, Lady Stanley, urged the suggestion, and I promised to let M. Coquelin know my decision by letter to Paris, as he was returning to France by the next morning's train, having finished his London engage

ment.

As soon as my friends in London knew of my decision to go, everything possible was done to hinder me; it was represented to me that I was wrecking a brilliant career. I very nearly gave up the adventure, and perhaps might have done so but that a deep personal sorrow which had struck across my life at that time caused me to desire the distraction of a new and more absorbing occupation.

Many kind friends sent me letters of recommendation to persons in France. Acting upon friendly advice, I decided to make my home with some French family during my studies in Paris, so as to learn French ways of thought to the core, and speak, write, think, and live French during that period. Many were the letters given me by friends to families of distinction, with injunctions to look kindly after me. But chance at the last moment led me blindly, as it were, to persons who were strangers to me, who yet became, throughout all my stay in France, my "famille de France," as they called themselves, my mother, my sisters, my old grandmother, and never was there a more devoted and loyal home circle than this exquisite French family of the old régime became to me.

At a house where I was dining on the evening before my departure from London to Paris my hostess asked me casually if I could deliver a message in Paris for her to the Marquise Le Mulier.

Before starting on my rounds to call on the persons, a family of rank and of some literary distinction, with whom certain English friends had hoped I might find a home during my stay in France, I

made it my duty to deliver the message I had brought to the Marquise Le Mulier. I left the ladies who accompanied me in the carriage, and alone went up the five flights of stairs to the marquise's apart

ment.

The family consisted of the old marquise; her daughter, Mme. Germaine, a lady of fifty or so; two grandsons; and three granddaughters, Marie, Olga, and young Germaine.

They showed me a precious miniature. of the old marquise by the famous miniaturist Guérin, showing her at the age of three, holding a doll, standing in the gardens of the Palais Royal, they said. It was a good portrait in essence of the marquise as I saw her before me, small, with very large, wide-opened blue eyes, laughing and bright, and a broad forehead. I admired her at once and was charmed by her. It seemed to me she was something to me. I felt as if there was some tender destiny between me and all that exquisite family.

As the time came to rise and end my short visit, it seemed suddenly sad for me to go. I spoke my thoughts aloud, and said to myself, murmuring the words, as they afterward told me, "This is the place where I should be happy." Then I turned and asked Mme. Le Mulier if she could not take me into her fold, and gave a full explanation of my purpose in coming to Paris. The suggestion caused a moment of silence. I said, "I seem to know youyou would understand me; I should have perfect confidence here."

They looked at one another, then excused themselves, and withdrew for a consultation. Presently they returned and stood around me, and the old marquise told me that I might come. Both she and her daughter afterward called me “ma fille d'Amérique"-my daughter from America and spoke of themselves as my "family of France" and my "sisters of France." During my entire stay in France those expressions were made good in deeds, and have always proved true since that first day of our accidental meeting.

Pursuing the old dictum, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do," I put myself into the hands of my French family, and asked them to advise me as if our pleasant fiction were actually true and I were their daughter in very fact. In that way I saw life from the French point of view. During my entire stay in France, I never so much as appeared out of doors unaccompanied by the marquise or by one or more of those ladies. One of them was also present in the drawing-room during any visits I received.

I took up several courses in French with university professors, studied tragedy and comedy with the most distinguished and famous actors of the Théâtre Français, rehearsing with Coquelin Aîné and with Mounet-Sully as well as with several others: with M. Laugier of the Comédie Française; and Paul Berton, who had played the leading parts with Sarah Bernhardt and was the grandson of Samson, the old actor with whom Rachel studied her great classical rôles. M. Berton possessed many letters of Rachel's to his grandfather.

Several persons who had been acquainted with Rachel told me stories of her, and of the impression her acting created on their minds. Among them was Lord Glenesk, whose father had known Rachel well; Leconte de Lisle, who had met her; Victorien Sardou; and Marie Laurent, a handsome, white-haired, blackeyed woman, who as a young girl had played Rachel's suivante with her in all of her great rôles. The impression was always the same-that of all-conquering genius. It was clear that those who saw Rachel act did not bring away opinions of her work, but a fiery experience which had lifted all minds to a sublime height of emotion, which they never forgot during the rest of their lives.

Lord Glenesk gave me an account of his first meeting with Rachel. He had gone to Paris for the first time as a youth, and for the first time his father had taken him to the Français to see Rachel act. The entire audience had been stirred to the wildest pitch of enthusiasm and excite