d pomades, and transforming ourselves into "strolling
players"; though, sooth to say, there was precious little "strolling"
done after we started, for we were all rushing for rooms, for food, for
trains, through a blizzard that was giving us plenty of delaying
snow-drifts. And while the company was cheerfully "barn-storming," Mr.
Daly was doing his best to find shelter for us in New York, engaging the
little one-time church on Broadway. He had painters, paper-hangers,
scrub-women, upholsterers, climbing over one another in their frantic
efforts to do all he desired to have done in about one-half the
regulation time allowed for such work; and while they toiled day and
night with much noise and great demonstration of haste, he sat
statue-still in a far corner, mentally reviewing every manuscript in his
possession, searching eagerly for the one that most nearly answered to
the needs of the moment. Namely, a play that required a strong cast of
characters (he had plenty of men and women), little preparation, and
scanty scenery (since he was short of both time and money). And, finding
"Alixe," then known as "The Countess de Somerive," he stopped short. The
action of the play covered but one day--that was promising. There were
but three acts--good; but two scenes--better! A conventional chateau
garden-terrace for one act, and a simply elegant morning-room or stately
drawing-room, according to managerial taste, could stand for the other
two acts. A strong and dramatic work--requiring the painting of but two
scenes. The play was found! The company was ordered home to rehearse it.

Now at that time, to my own great anxiety, I was by way of standing on
very dangerous ground. The public had favored me almost extravagantly
from the very first performance of _Anne Sylvester_, but the critics, at
least the most important two, seemed to praise my efforts with a certain
unwilling drag of the pen. Nearly all their kind words had the sweetness
squeezed out of them between "buts" and "ifs," and, most wounding of all,
my actual work was less often criticized than were my personal defects.
Occasionally an actress's work may be too good for her own welfare. You
doubt that? Yet I know an actress, still in harness, who in her lovely
prime made so great a hit, in the part of an adventuress, that she has
had nothing else to act since. Whenever a play was produced with such a
character in it, she was sent for. But if she was proposed for a loyal
wi