room we could "scrooge" into, as children say.

Long trains were fashionable then, and it was no uncommon sight to see
the lover standing with both feet firmly planted upon his lady's train
while he implored her to fly with him--the poor man had to stand
somewhere! Miss Davenport, in one of her comedy scenes, having to move
about a good deal on the crowded stage, finally wound her trailing skirts
so completely about a chair that, at her exit, the chair went with her,
causing a great laugh.

One night a male character, having to say boastfully to me: "I have my
hand upon a fortune!" I added in an undertone: "And both feet upon my
white satin dress!" at which he lost his grip (as the boys say) and
laughed aloud--said laugh costing him a forfeit of fifty cents, which
really should have been paid by me, as I was the guilty cause of that
disastrous effect. But the gentleman was not only gallant but well used
to being forfeited, and unconcernedly paid the penalty exacted.

But really it was very distressing trying to make your way between pieces
of furniture--stopping to release your skirts from first one thing and
then another, and often destroying all the effect of your words by such
action. One evening I petulantly observed to Mr. Daly: "I see now why one
is only _woolly_ in the West--in the East one gets the wool all rubbed
off on unnecessary pedestals and centre-divans."

He laughed first, then pulled up sharply, saying: "Perhaps you did not
notice that your comment contained a criticism of my judgment, Miss
Morris? If I think the furniture necessary, that is sufficient," and I
gave him a military salute and ran down-stairs. At the foot Mr. George
Brown and one of the pretty young women stood. She was saying: "Now if
any of _us_ had said there was too much crowding from that rubbishy old
furniture, he would have made us pay a nice forfeit for it, but Miss
Morris gets off scot-free!"

"Yes, I know," said Mr. Brown, "but then she amused him first with the
idea of rubbing the Western wool off here, and you can't very well laugh
and then turn around and forfeit the person who made you do it."

And so I learned that if no detail was too small for Mr. Daly to consider
carefully in his preparation of a play, so no detail of daily life in his
theatre was too small for notice, consideration, and comment, and I
resolved to try hard to curb my careless speech, lest it get me into
trouble.

Early during that first week my fr