One of her admirers—­an elderly gentleman named Seymour—­came to her one day when she was in much need of money, and told her that he had just deposited a thousand pounds to her credit at the bank.  Having said this, he left the room precipitately.  It was the beginning of a sort of courtship; and after a while she married him.  Her feeling toward him was one of gratitude.  There was no sentiment about it; but she made him a good wife, and gave no further cause for gossip.

Such was the woman whom Charles Reade now approached with the request that she would let him read to her a portion of his play.  He had seen her act, and he honestly believed her to be a dramatic genius of the first order.  Few others shared this belief; but she was generally thought of as a competent, though by no means brilliant, actress.  Reade admired her extremely, so that at the very thought of speaking with her his emotions almost choked him.

In answer to a note, she sent word that he might call at her house.  He was at this time (1849) in his thirty-eighth year.  The lady was a little older, and had lost something of her youthful charm; yet, when Reade was ushered into her drawing-room, she seemed to him the most graceful and accomplished woman whom he had ever met.

She took his measure, or she thought she took it, at a glance.  Here was one of those would-be playwrights who live only to torment managers and actresses.  His face was thin, from which she inferred that he was probably half starved.  His bashfulness led her to suppose that he was an inexperienced youth.  Little did she imagine that he was the son of a landed proprietor, a fellow of one of Oxford’s noblest colleges, and one with friends far higher in the world than herself.  Though she thought so little of him, and quite expected to be bored, she settled herself in a soft armchair to listen.  The unsuccessful playwright read to her a scene or two from his still unfinished drama.  She heard him patiently, noting the cultivated accent of his voice, which proved to her that he was at least a gentleman.  When he had finished, she said: 

“Yes, that’s good!  The plot is excellent.”  Then she laughed a sort of stage laugh, and remarked lightly:  “Why don’t you turn it into a novel?”

Reade was stung to the quick.  Nothing that she could have said would have hurt him more.  Novels he despised; and here was this woman, the queen of the English stage, as he regarded her, laughing at his drama and telling him to make a novel of it.  He rose and bowed.

“I am trespassing on your time,” he said; and, after barely touching the fingers of her outstretched hand, he left the room abruptly.

The woman knew men very well, though she scarcely knew Charles Reade.  Something in his melancholy and something in his manner stirred her heart.  It was not a heart that responded to emotions readily, but it was a very good-natured heart.  Her explanation of Reade’s appearance led her to think that he was very poor.  If she had not much tact, she had an abundant store of sympathy; and so she sat down and wrote a very blundering but kindly letter, in which she enclosed a five-pound note.