t gave a plunge and
sent a rush of blood into her face that made her very eyeballs pinken;
and then again the clutching fingers, the flaring nostrils, the gasping
for air, the pleading look, the frightened eyes! Oh, it is unforgettable!
poor soul! poor soul!

Well, having my symptoms gathered together, they yet had to be sorted
out, toned down, and adapted to this or that occasion. But at least the
work had not been thrown away, for on the first night Dr. Fordyce
Barker--a keen dramatic critic, by the way--occupied with a friend a
private box. He had rescued me from the hands of the specialists in
Paris, and I had at times been his patient. He applauded heartily after
the first two acts, but looked rather worried. At the end of the third
act a gentleman of his party turned and looked at him inquiringly. The
doctor threw up his hands, while shaking his head disconsolately. The
friend said: "Why, I'm surprised--I thought Miss Morris suffered from her
spine?"

"So she does--so she does," nodded Dr. Barker.

"But," went on the friend, "this thing isn't spine--this looks like heart
to me."

"I should say so," responded the doctor. "I knew she wasn't strong--just
a thing of nerves and will--but I never saw a sign of heart trouble
before. But it's here now, and it's bad; for, by Jove, she can't go
through another attack like that and finish this play. Too bad, too bad!"

And his honest sympathy for my new affliction spoiled his evening right
up to the point of discovery that it was all in the play. Then he enjoyed
the laugh against himself almost as much as I enjoyed his recognition of
my laboriously acquired symptoms.

And now for Mr. Palmer's beloved cast.

With what a mixture of pleasure and grief I recall Sara Jewett, the
loveliest woman and the most perfect representative of a French lady of
quality I have ever seen in the part of _Mathilde_.

Mr. James O'Neil's success in _Maurice de la Tour_ was particularly
agreeable to me, because I had earnestly called attention to him some
time before he was finally summoned to New York. His fine work in
Chicago, where I had first met him, had convinced me that he ought to be
here, and that beautiful performance fully justified every claim I had
made for him in the first place. The part is a difficult one. Some men
rant in it, some are savagely cruel, some cold as stone. O'Neil's
_Maurice_ bore his wound with a patient dignity that made his one
outbreak into hot passion tr