Both of us, even at this early age, had dreams of playing all Mrs. Kean’s parts.  We knew the words, not only of them, but of every female part in every play in which we had appeared at the Princess’s.  “Walking on is so dull,” the young actress says sometimes to me now, and I ask her if she knows all the parts of the play in which she is “walking on.”  I hardly ever find that she does.  “I have no understudy,” is her excuse.  Even if a young woman has not been given an understudy, she ought, if she has any intention of taking her profession as an actress seriously, to constitute herself an understudy to every part in the piece!  Then she would not find her time as a “super” hang heavy on her hands.

Some of my readers may be able to remember the “Stalactite Caverns” which used to form one of the attractions at the Colosseum.  It was there that I first studied the words of Juliet.  To me the gloomy horror of the place was a perfect godsend!  Here I could cultivate a creepy, eerie sensation, and get into a fitting frame of mind for the potion scene.  Down in this least imposing of subterranean abodes I used to tremble and thrill with passion and terror.  Ah, if only in after years, when I played Juliet at the Lyceum, I could have thrilled an audience to the same extent!

After a few weeks at the Colosseum, we began our little tour.  It was a very merry, happy time.  We traveled a company of five, although only two of us were acting.  There were my father and mother, Kate and myself, and Mr. Sydney Naylor, who played the very important part of orchestra.  With a few exceptions we made the journeys in a carriage.  Once we tramped from Bristol to Exeter.  Oh, those delightful journeys on the open road!  I tasted the joys of the strolling player’s existence, without its miseries.  I saw the country for the first time....  When they asked me what I was thinking of as we drove along, I remember answering:  “Only that I should like to run wild in a wood for ever!” At night we stayed in beautiful little inns which were ever so much more cheap and comfortable than the hotels of to-day.  In some of the places we were asked out to tea and dinner and very much feted.  An odd little troupe we were!  Father was what we will call for courtesy’s sake “Stage Manager,” but in reality he set the stage himself, and did the work which generally falls to the lot of the stage manager and an army of carpenters combined.  My mother used to coach us up in our parts, dress us, make us go to sleep part of the day so that we might look “fresh” at night, and look after us generally.  Mr. Naylor, who was not very much more than a boy, though to my childish eyes his years were quite venerable, besides discoursing eloquent music in the evenings, during the progress of the “Drawing-room Entertainment,” would amuse us—­me most especially—­by being very entertaining himself during our journeys from place to place.  How he made us laugh about—­well, mostly about nothing at all.