ot pleased with a
secondary part assigned to her. A polite note informed me of his change
of mind. This was, I think, the greatest "let down" that I ever
experienced. It affected me seriously for some days, after which I
determined to attempt nothing more for the stage.

In truth, there appeared to be little reason for this action on the part
of the manager. Miss Cushman, speaking of it, said to me, "My dear, if
Edwin Booth and I had done nothing more than to stand upon the stage and
say 'good evening' to each other, the house would have been filled."

Mr. Booth, in the course of these years, experienced great happiness and
great sorrow. On the occasion of our first meeting he had spoken to me
of "little Mary Devlin" as an actress of much promise, who had recently
been admired in "several _heavy_ parts." In process of time he became
engaged to this young girl. Before the announcement of this fact he
appeared with her several times before the Boston public. Few that saw
it will ever forget a performance of Romeo and Juliet in which the two
true lovers were at their best, ideally young, beautiful, and identified
with their parts. I soon became well acquainted with this exquisite
little woman, of whose untimely death the poet Parsons wrote:--

"What shall we do now, Mary being dead,
Or say or write that shall express the half?
What can we do but pillow that fair head,
And let the spring-time write her epitaph?--

"As it will soon, in snowdrop, violet,
Windflower and columbine and maiden's tear;
Each letter of that pretty alphabet
That spells in flowers the pageant of the year.

* * * * *

"She hath fulfilled her promise and hath passed;
Set her down gently at the iron door!
Eyes look on that loved image for the last:
Now cover it in earth,--her earth no more."

These lines recall to me the scene of Mary Booth's funeral, which took
place in wintry weather, the service being held at the chapel in Mount
Auburn. Hers was a most pathetic figure as she lay, serene and lovely,
surrounded with flowers. As Edwin Booth followed the casket, his eyes
heavy with grief, I could not but remember how often I had seen him
enact the part of Hamlet at the stage burial of Ophelia. Beside or
behind him walked a young man of remarkable beauty, to be sadly known at
a later date as Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Lincoln and the victim of
his own crime. Henry Ward Beecher,