“Pooh, pooh!” laughed Gahagan, “you were only a boy then, now you have more experience in these matters; besides, Lydia Languish was a part quite unworthy of your powers; Lady Macbeth is a horse of another colour.”

“Why, man, with what face could I aver that

  ’I have given suck, and know
  How tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me.’

That would certainly draw tears from the audience, but they would be tears of laughter, not sympathy, I warrant you.  No, no, good master Fred, it won’t do, I tell you; and in the words of Lady Macbeth herself, I say—­

  ’What beast was’t, then,
  That made you break this enterprise to me?’

And now oblige me by walking your body off, for I have got my yesterday’s guard report to fill up and send in, in default of which I shall be sure to catch an ‘official’ from the Brigade-Major.”

But Fred not only did not walk his body off, but harping on the same string, pertinaciously continued to ply me with alternate arguments and intreaties, until at last fairly wearied out, and more, I believe, with the hope of getting rid of the “importunate chink” of the fellow’s discourse, than anything else, in an evil moment I consented! hear it not, shade of Mrs. Siddons! to denude myself of the bushy honours of my cheeks, and tread the boards of the Bangalore stage as the wife of that atrocious usurper “King Cawdor Glamis!”

Fred marched himself away, elated at having carried his point; and I, after sundry dubious misgivings anent the rash promise I had made, ended by casting all compunctious visitings to the winds, and doughtily resolved, as I was in for the business, to “screw my courage to the sticking-place,’ and go through with it as boldly as I might.

By dint of continually studying my role, my dislike to it gradually diminished, nay, at length was converted into positive enthusiasm.  I became convinced that I should make a decided hit, and cover my temples with unfading laurel.  I rehearsed at all times, seasons, and places, until I was a perfect nuisance to everybody, and my acquaintance, I am sure, to a man, wished both me and her bloodthirsty ladyship, deeper than plummet ever sounded, at the bottom of the sea.  Even the brute creation did not escape the annoyance.  One morning my English pointer “Spot” ran yelping out of the room, panic-stricken by the vehement manner with which I exclaimed, “Out damned spot, out, I say!” and with the full conviction, which the animal probably entertained to the day of his death, that the said anathema had personal reference to himself.

The evening big with my fate at last arrived.  The house was crammed, expectation on tiptoe, and the play commenced.  The first four acts went off swimmingly, my performance especially was applauded to the echo, and there only wanted the celebrated sleeping scene, in which I flattered myself to be particularly strong, to complete my triumph.  Triumph, did I say!