“I wonder if you would like to come to luncheon some day and have a little chat with her?  But perhaps you already know her.  I love her dearly.  She has one fault—­she never goes to the theater.  Oh my!  What she misses, poor thing, poor thing!  We have already seen ‘Faust’ twice, and are going again soon, and shall take the George Macdonalds this time.  The Holman Hunts were delighted.  He is one of the most interesting and clever men I have ever met, and she is very charming and clever too.  How beautifully plain you write!  Give me the recipe.

“With many kind greetings,

“Believe me sincerely yours,

“ANTOINETTE STERLING MACKINLAY.”

My girl Edy was one of the angels in the vision in the last act of “Faust,” an event which Henry commemorated in a little rhyme that he sent me on Valentine’s Day with some beautiful flowers: 

    “White and red roses,
    Sweet and fresh posies,
    One bunch for Edy, Angel of mine—­
    One bunch for Nell, my dear Valentine.”

Mr. Toole ran a burlesque on the Lyceum “Faust,” called “Faust-and-Loose.”  Henry did not care for burlesques as a rule.  He thought Fred Leslie’s exact imitation of him, face, spectacles, voice—­everything was like Henry except the ballet-skirt—­in the worst taste.  But everything that Toole did was to him adorable.  Marie Linden gave a really clever imitation of me as Marguerite.  She and her sister Laura both had the trick of taking me off.  I recognized the truth of Laura’s caricature in the burlesque of “The Vicar of Wakefield” when as Olivia she made her entrance, leaping impulsively over a stile!

There was an absurd chorus of girl “mashers” in “Faust-and-Loose,” dressed in tight black satin coats, who besides dancing and singing had lines in unison, such as “No, no!” “We will!” As one of these girls Violet Vanbrugh made her first appearance on the stage.  In her case “we will!” proved prophetic.  It was her plucky “I will get on” which finally landed her in her present successful position.

Violet Barnes was the daughter of Prebendary Barnes of Exeter, who, when he found his daughter stage-struck, behaved far more wisely than most parents.  He gave her L100 and sent her to London with her old nurse to look after her, saying that if she really “meant business” she would find an engagement before the L100 was gone.  Violet had inherited some talent from her mother, who was a very clever amateur actress, and the whole family were fond of getting up entertainments.  But Violet didn’t know quite how far L100 would go, or wouldn’t go.  I happened to call on her at her lodgings near Baker Street one afternoon, and found her having her head washed, and crying bitterly all the time!  She had come to the end of the L100, she had not got an engagement, and thought she would have to go home defeated.  There was something funny in the tragic situation.  Vi was sitting on the floor, drying her hair, crying, and drinking port wine to cure a cold in her head!