One day I was driving in a narrow lane, when the wheel of the pony-cart came off.  I was standing there, thinking what I should do next, when a whole crowd of horsemen in “pink” came leaping over the hedge into the lane.  One of them stopped and asked if he could do anything.  Then he looked hard at me and exclaimed:  “Good God! it’s Nelly!”

The man was Charles Reade.

“Where have you been all these years?” he said.

“I have been having a very happy time,” I answered.

“Well, you’ve had it long enough.  Come back to the stage!”

“No, never!”

“You’re a fool!  You ought to come back.”

Suddenly I remembered the bailiff in the house a few miles away, and I said laughingly:  “Well, perhaps, I would think of it if some one would give me forty pounds a week!”

“Done!” said Charles Reade.  “I’ll give you that, and more, if you’ll come and play Philippa Chester in ‘The Wandering Heir.’”

He went on to explain that Mrs. John Wood, who had been playing Philippa at the New Queen’s, of which he was the lessee, would have to relinquish the part soon, because she was under contract to appear elsewhere.  The piece was a great success, and promised to run a long time if he could find a good Philippa to replace Mrs. Wood.  It was a kind of Rosalind part, and Charles Reade only exaggerated pardonably when he said that I should never have any part better suited to me!

In a very short time after that meeting in the lane, it was announced that the new Philippa was to be an actress who was returning to the stage “after a long period of retirement.”  Only just before the first night did anyone guess who it was, and then there was great excitement among those who remembered me.  The acclamation with which I was welcomed back on the first night surprised me.  The papers were more flattering than they had ever been before.  It was a tremendous success for me, and I was all the more pleased because I was following an accomplished actress in the part.

It is curious how often I have “followed” others.  I never “created” a part, as theatrical parlance has it, until I played Olivia at the Court, and I had to challenge comparison, in turn, with Miss Marie Wilton, Mrs. John Wood and Mrs. Kendal.  Perhaps it was better for me than if I had had parts specially written for me, and with which no other names were associated.

The hero of “The Wandering Heir,” when I first took up the part of Philippa, was played by Edmund Leathes, but afterward by Johnston Forbes-Robertson.  Everyone knows how good-looking he is now, but as a boy he was wonderful—­a dreamy, poetic-looking creature in a blue smock, far more of an artist than an actor—­he promised to paint quite beautifully—­and full of aspirations and ideals.  In those days began a friendship between us which has lasted unbroken until this moment.  His father and mother were delightful people, and very kind to me always.