e that a very gale of laughter filled the house,
and she retired then and there, though in the next speech she should have
refused to leave _Romeo_:

"Pardon me, sir, I will not leave you thus:
Your looks are pale and wild,"

yet now, because his looks were red and wild, she left without
permission, and the enraged instead of grieving _Romeo_ had no one to
receive his order:

"----get me ink and paper,
And hire post horses."

So when, in his confusion, he went on continuing his lines as they were
written, and, addressing empty space, fiercely bade _Balthazar_:

"----get thee gone!"

and in unintentionally suggestive tones promised:

"----I'll be with thee straight!"

the audience laughed openly and heartily at the star himself.

"Yes, sir," he snorted later on to Mr. Ellsler, "by heaven, sir! they
laughed at me--AT ME! I have been made ridiculous by your measly little
_Balthazar_--who should have been a man, sir! Yes, sir, a man, whom I
could have chastised for making a fool of himself, sir! and a d----d
fool of me, sir!"

For the real tragedy of that night lay in the wound given to the dignity
of Mr. F. B. Conway, who played a measured and stately _Romeo_ to the
handsome and mature _Juliet_ of his wife.

We had no young _Juliets_ just then, they were all rather advanced,
rather settled in character for the reckless child of Verona. But every
lady who played the part declared at rehearsal that Shakespeare had been
foolish to make _Juliet_ so young--that no woman had learned enough to
understand and play her before middle age at least.

Mrs. Bradshaw, one day, said laughingly to me: "By your looks you seemed
to disagree with Mrs. Ellsler's remarks this morning. She, too, thinks a
woman is not fit for _Juliet_ until she has learned much of nature and
the world."

"But," I objected, lamely, "while they are learning so much about the
world they are forgetting such a lot about girlhood!"

Her laughter confused and distressed me. "I can't say it!" I cried, "but
you know how very forward _Juliet_ is in speech? If she _knew_, that
would become brazen boldness! It isn't what she _knows_, but what she
_feels_ without knowing that makes the tragedy!" And what Mrs. Bradshaw
meant by muttering, "Babes and sucklings--from the mouths of babes and
sucklings," I could not make out; perhaps, however, I should say that my
mate Annie played few blankverse parts after _Balthazar_.

The