rance,
watching the acting of the grown-up and the grown-great. _Lady Macbeth_
was giving the sleep-walking scene. Her method was of the old, old
school. She spoke at almost the full power of her lungs, throughout that
mysterious, awe-inspiring sleep-walking scene. It jarred upon my
feelings--I could not have told why, but it did. I believed myself alone,
and when the memory-haunted woman roared out: "Yet, who would have
thought the old man to have had so much _blood_ in him?" I remarked,
_sotto voce_: "Did you expect to find ink in him?"

A sharp "ahem!" right at my shoulder told me I had been overheard, and I
turned to face--oh, horror! the stage-manager. He glared angrily at me,
and began: "Since when have the ladies of the ballet taken to
criticising the work of the stars?"

Humbly enough, I said: "I beg your pardon, sir, I was just talking to
myself, that was all."

But he went on: "Oh, you would not criticize a reading, unless you could
better it--so pray favor us with _your_ ideas on this speech!"

Each sneering word cut me to the heart. Tears filled my eyes. I struggled
hard to keep them from falling, while I just murmured: "I beg your
pardon!" Again he demanded my reading, saying they were not "too old to
learn," and in sheer desperation, I exclaimed: "I was only speaking to
myself, but I thought _Lady Macbeth_ was amazed at the _quantity_ of
blood that flowed from the body of such an old man--for when you get old,
you know, sir, you don't have so much blood as you used to, and I only
just thought, that as the 'sleeping men were laced,' and the knives
'smeared,' and her hands 'bathed' with it, she might have perhaps
whispered: 'Yet, who would have thought the old man to have had _so much_
blood in him?' I didn't mean an impertinence!" and down fell the tears,
for I could not talk and hold them back at the same time.

He looked at me in dead silence for a few moments, then he said: "Humph!"
and walked away, while I rushed to the dressing-room and cried and cried,
and vowed that never, never again would I talk to myself--in the theatre
at all events. I mention these incidents to show how quickly I came under
the influence of these Shakespeare-studying men and women, some of whom
had received their very adequate education from him alone.

It was odd to hear how they used his words and expressions in their daily
conversation. 'Twas not so much quoting him intentionally, as it was an
unconscious incorporation