tised the first strawberries in the papers." She, on the
contrary, used to announce the coming of autumn, with "Have you
heard they're selling boxes for the theatre? now the performances will
begin."

She used to value a lodging entirely according to its proximity to
the theatre. It was a real sorrow to her when she had to leave the
little lane behind the playhouse, and move into the great street
that lay a little farther off, and live there in a house where she had
no opposite neighbors.

"At home," said she, "my windows must be my opera-box. One
cannot sit and look into one's self till one's tired; one must see
people. But now I live just as if I'd go into the country. If I want
to see human beings, I must go into my kitchen, and sit down on the
sink, for there only I have opposite neighbors. No; when I lived in my
dear little lane, I could look straight down into the ironmonger's
shop, and had only three hundred paces to the theatre; and now I've
three thousand paces to go, military measurement."

Our aunt was sometimes ill, but however unwell she might feel, she
never missed the play. The doctor prescribed one day that she should
put her feet in a bran bath, and she followed his advice; but she
drove to the theatre all the same, and sat with her feet in bran
there. If she had died there, she would have been very glad.
Thorwaldsen died in the theatre, and she called that a happy death.

She could not imagine but that in heaven there must be a theatre
too. It had not, indeed, been promised us, but we might very well
imagine it. The many distinguished actors and actresses who had passed
away must surely have a field for their talent.

Our aunt had an electric wire from the theatre to her room. A
telegram used to be dispatched to her at coffee-time, and it used to
consist of the words, "Herr Sivertsen is at the machinery;" for it was
he who gave the signal for drawing the curtain up and down and for
changing the scenes.

From him she used to receive a short and concise description of
every piece. His opinion of Shakspeare's "Tempest," was, "Mad
nonsense! There's so much to put up, and the first scene begins with
'Water to the front of the wings.'" That is to say, the water had to
come forward so far. But when, on the other hand, the same interior
scene remained through five acts, he used to pronounce it a
sensible, well-written play, a resting play, which performed itself,
without putting up scenes.

In earlie