fe, a gentle sweetheart, a modern heroine, the quick response
invariably was: "Oh, she can't play anything but the adventuress."

There is nothing more fatal to the artistic value, to the future welfare
of a young player, than to be known as "a one-part actress"; yet that was
the very danger that was threatening me at the time of the burning of the
home theatre. Following other parts known as strong, _Jezebel_, the
half-breed East Indian, a velvet-footed treachery and twice would-be
murderess, and _Cora_, the quadroon mad-woman, were in a fair way to
injure me greatly. Already one paper had said: "Miss Morris has a
strange, intuitive comprehension of these creatures of mixed blood."

But worse than that, the most powerful of the two critics I dreaded had
said one morning: "Miss Morris played with care and much feeling. The
audience wept _copiously_" (to anyone who has long read the great critic,
that word "copiously" is tantamount to his full signature, so
persistently does he use it), "but her performance was flecked with those
tigerish gleams that seem to be a part of her method. She will probably
find difficulty in equaling in any other line her success as _Cora_."

No animal had ever a keener sense of approaching danger than I had, when
my professional welfare was threatened, and these small straws told me
plainly which way the wind was beginning to blow, and now, looking back,
I am convinced that just one more "tigerish part" at that time would have
meant artistic ruin to me, for, figuratively speaking, pens were already
dipped to write me down "a one-part actress."

Then, one bitter cold day we returned to New York and Mr. Daly, sending
for me, said he must ask a favor of me. A form of speech that literally
made me "sit up straight"--yes, and gasp, too, with astonishment. With a
regretful sigh he went on: "I suppose you know you are a strong
attraction?"

I smiled broadly at his evident disapproval of such knowledge on my part,
and he continued: "But in this play there is no part for you--yet I
greatly need all my strongest people in this first cast. Of course as far
as ability is concerned you could play the _Countess_ and make a hit, but
she's too old--so you'll not play the mother to marriageable daughters
under my management, even in an emergency. Now I have Miss Morant, Miss
Davenport and Miss Dietz, but--but I must have your name, too."

I nodded vigorously--I understood. And having seen the play in Pari