The next Prime Minister, whom I knew better than either Mr. Gladstone or Lord Salisbury, was Lord Rosebery.

When I was a little girl, my mother took us to stay at Thomas’s Hotel, Berkeley Square, to have a course of dancing lessons from the fashionable and famous M. d’Egville.  These lessons put me in high spirits, because my master told me I could always make a living on the stage.  His remarks were justified by a higher authority ten years later:  the beautiful Kate Vaughan of the Gaiety Theatre.

I made her acquaintance in this way:  I was a good amateur actress and with the help of Miss Annie Schletter, a friend of mine who is on the English stage now, I thought we might act Moliere’s Precieuses ridicules together for a charity matinee.  Coquelin—­the finest actor of Moliere that ever lived—­was performing in London at the time and promised he would not only coach me in my part but lend his whole company for our performance.  He gave me twelve lessons and I worked hard for him.  He was intensely particular; and I was more nervous over these lessons than I ever felt riding over high timber.  My father was so delighted at what Coquelin said to him about me and my acting that he bought a fine early copy of Moliere’s plays which he made me give him.  I enclose his letter of refusal: 

My dearest little Margot,

Je suis tres mecontent de vous.  Je croyais que vous me traitiez tout a fait en ami, car c’etait en ami que j’avais accepte de vous offrir quelques indications sur les Precieuses...et voila que vous m’envoyez un enorme cadeau...imprudence d’abord parce que j’ai tous les beaux Moliere qui existent et ensuite parce qu’il ne fallait pas envoyer ombre de quoi que ce soit a votre ami Coq.

Je vais tout faire, malgre cela, pour aller vous voir un instant au’jourd’hui, mais je ne suis pas certain d’y parvenir.

Remerciez votre amie Madelon et dites-lui bien qu’elle non plus ne me doit absolument rien.

J’aime mieux un tout petit peu de la plus legere gratitude que n’importe quoi.  Conservez, ma chere Margot, un bon souvenir de ce petit travail qui a du vous amuser beaucoup et qui nous a reunis dans les meilleurs sentiments du monde; continuons nous cette sympathie que je trouve moi tout a fait exquise—­et croyez qu’en la continuant de votre cote, vous serez mille fois plus que quitte envers votre tres devoue

Coq.

Coquelin the younger was our stage-manager, and acted the principal part.  When it was over and the curtain went down, “Freddy Wellesley’s [Footnote:  The Hon. F. Wellesley, a famous bean and the husband of Kate Vaughan.] band” was playing Strauss valses in the entr’acve, while the audience was waiting for Kate Vaughan to appear in a short piece called The Dancing Lesson, the most beautiful solo dance ever seen.  I was alone on the stage and, thinking that no one could see me, I slipped off my Moliere hoop of flowered silk and let myself go, in lace petticoats, to the wonderful music.  Suddenly I heard a rather Cockney voice say from the wings: