hy upset it merely to put it straight again? It
would surprise most women the amount of labour that can be avoided in a
house.

For needlework, I confess, I never acquired skill. Dan had learnt to
handle a thimble, but my own second finger was ever reluctant to come
forward when wanted. It had to be found, all other fingers removed out
of its way. Then, feebly, nervously, it would push, slip, get itself
pricked badly with the head of the needle, and, thoroughly frightened,
remain incapable of further action. More practical I found it to push
the needle through by help of the door or table.

The opera, as Dan had predicted, ran far into the following year. When
it was done with, another--in which "Goggles" appeared as one of the
principals--took its place, and was even more successful. After the
experience of Nelson Square, my present salary of thirty-five shillings,
occasionally forty shillings, a week seemed to me princely. There
floated before my eyes the possibility of my becoming a great opera
singer. On six hundred pounds a week, I felt I could be content. But the
O'Kelly set himself to dispel this dream.

"Ye'd be making a mistake, me boy," explained the O'Kelly. "Ye'd be just
wasting ye're time. I wouldn't tell ye so if I weren't convinced of it."

"I know it is not powerful," I admitted.

"Ye might almost call it thin," added the O'Kelly.

"It might be good enough for comic opera," I argued. "People appear to
succeed in comic opera without much voice.

"Sure, there ye're right," agreed the O'Kelly, with a sigh. "An' of
course if ye had an exceptionally fine presence and were strikingly
handsome--"

"One can do a good deal with make-up," I suggested.

The O'Kelly shook his head. "It's never quite the same thing. It would
depend upon your acting."

I dreamt of becoming a second Kean, of taking Macready's place. It need
not interfere with my literary ambition. I could combine the two: fill
Drury Lane in the evening, turn out epoch-making novels in the morning,
write my own plays.

Every day I studied in the reading-room of the British Museum. Wearying
of success in Art, I might eventually go into Parliament: a Prime
Minister with a thorough knowledge of history: why not? With Ollendorf
for guide, I continued French and German. It might be the diplomatic
service that would appeal to me in my old age. An ambassadorship! It
would be a pleasant termination to a brilliant career.

There was excuse for my