public, and made good her claim to rank amongst the greatest actresses our country has given us. Pauline, Portia, Desdemona, Juliet, Lady Macbeth, and many more; how well we know them all!
Miss Terry well remembered that memorable night of December 30th, 1878.
"You ask me if I know what nervousness means," she said. "Why, I am so high-strung at the Lyceum, on a first night, that if I realized that there was an audience in front, staring at me, I should fly off and be down at Winchelsea in two two's! I shall never forget my first appearance at the Lyceum as Ophelia. Dear old Mrs. Rumball—you remember meeting her at Barkston Gardens?—was waiting for me in my dressing-room. I finish my part at the end of the fourth act—I couldn't wait to see the fifth. I rushed upstairs to my room and threw myself into her arms.
"'I've failed—I've failed!' I cried, in despair.
"'No, no!'
"'But I have—I have. Come along,' and we hurried away from the theatre, I in my Ophelia dress, with a big cloak thrown around me, and drove up and down the Embankment a dozen times before I dared go home."
"And when you saw the papers in the morning, how did you feel then?" I asked.
And as Punch, the terrier, came rushing down the path towards its mistress, the reply to my question told everything. She simply answered—and with all her heart—"Very happy."
"Dead! Dead, sir! Dead little doggy. Why won't you die? I really think this dog is as mad as a hatter. If he doesn't alter, I shall certainly call him 'The Hatter.' Die doggy, die!"
Punch did die eventually. He lay on his side, with his legs as stiff as those of a mahogany table. Then at the words "One—two—three!"—equivalent to the tolling of the bell—up he jumped, fully decided that it was downright ridiculous to die when he could live and be happy at Winchelsea.
Then tea was brought out, and over a refreshing cup, accompanied by delicious bread and butter and sultana cake—real sul-
