e small boy were to be
found in the person of the handsome, erratic, little Mabel.

Even the two maids were out of the common, one being played by a clever
and very versatile actress, who had been a friend of my old Cleveland
days. She came to me out of the laughing merry past, but all pale and sad
in trailing black, for death had been robbing her most cruelly. She
wished for a New York engagement and astonished me by declaring she would
play anything, no matter how small, if only the part gave her a foothold
on the New York stage.

I sought Mr. Palmer and talked hard and long for my friend, but he
laughed and answered: "An actress as clever as that will be very apt to
slight a part of only two scenes."

But I assured him to the contrary; that she would make the most of every
line, and the part would be a stepping-stone to bigger things. He granted
my prayer, and Louise Sylvester, by her earnestness, her breathless
excitement in rushing to and fro, bearing messages, answering bells, and
her excellent dancing, raised _Kitty_ to a character part, while
_Louise_, the smallest of them all, was played with a brisk and bright
assurance that made it hard to believe that Helen Vincent had come direct
from her convent school to the stage-door--as she had.

A great, great triumph for everyone was that first night of "Miss
Multon," and one of the sweetest drops in my own cup was added by the
hand of New York's honored and beloved poet, Edmund Clarence Stedman,
for, all nested in a basket of sweet violets, came a sonnet from him to
me, and though my unworthiness was evident enough, nevertheless I took
keenest joy in the beauty of its every line--surely a very sweet and
gracious token from one who was secure to one who was still struggling.
And now, when years have passed, he has given me another beautiful memory
to keep the first one company. I was taking my first steps in the new
profession of letters, which seems somewhat uncertain, slow, and
introspective, when compared with the swift, decisive, if rather
superficial profession of acting, and Mr. Stedman, in a pause from his
own giant labor on his great "Anthology," looked at, nay, actually
considered, that shivering fledgling thing, my first book, and wrote a
letter that spelled for me the word _encouragement_, and being a
past-master in the art of subtle flattery, quoted from my own book and
set alight a little flame of hope in my heart that is not extinguished
yet. So gen