But the weight that I can carry on the stage has often amazed me.  I remember that for “King Arthur” Mrs. Nettleship made me a splendid cloak embroidered all over with a pattern in jewels.  At the dress-rehearsal when I made my entrance the cloak swept magnificently and I daresay looked fine, but I knew at once that I should never be able to act in it.  I called out to Mrs. Nettleship and Alice Carr, who were in the stalls, and implored them to lighten it of some of the jewels.

“Oh, do keep it as it is,” they answered, “it looks splendid.”

“I can’t breathe in it, much less act in it.  Please send some one up to cut off a few stones.”

I went on with my part, and then, during a wait, two of Mrs. Nettleship’s assistants came on to the stage and snipped off a jewel here and there.  When they had filled a basket, I began to feel better!

But when they tried to lift that basket, their united efforts could not move it!

On one occasion I wore a dress made in eight hours!  During the first week of the run of “The Merry Wives of Windsor” at His Majesty’s, there was a fire in my dressing-room—­an odd fire which was never accounted for.  In the morning they found the dress that I had worn as Mrs. Page burnt to a cinder.  A messenger from His Majesty’s went to tell my daughter, who had made the ill-fated dress: 

“Miss Terry will, I suppose, have to wear one of our dresses to-night.  Perhaps you could make her a new one by the end of the week.”

“Oh, that will be all right,” said Edy, bluffing, “I’ll make her a dress by to-night.”  She has since told me that she did not really think she could make it in time!

She had at this time a workshop in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden.  All hands were called into the service, and half an hour after the message came from the theater the new dress was started.  That was at 10.30.  Before 7 p.m. the new dress was in my dressing-room at His Majesty’s Theater.

And best of all, it was a great improvement on the dress that had been burned!  It stood the wear and tear of the first run of “Merry Wives” and of all the revivals, and is still as fresh as paint!

That very successful dress cost no time.  Another very successful dress—­the white one that I wore in the Court Scene in “A Winter’s Tale,” cost no money.  My daughter made it out of material of which a sovereign must have covered the cost.

My daughter says to know what not to do is the secret of making stage dresses.  It is not a question of time or of money, but of omission.

One of the best “audiences” that actor or actress could wish for was Mr. Gladstone.  He used often to come and see the play at the Lyceum from a little seat in the O.P. entrance, and he nearly always arrived five minutes before the curtain went up.  One night I thought he would catch cold—­it was a bitter night—­and I lent him my white scarf!