age at an age
when most of the young women of the present day take to it for the first
time, and made an enduring reputation in a few brilliant years, was the
eldest of the family. Then came a sister, who died, and I was the third.
After us came Ben, George, Marion, Flossie, Charles, Tom, and Fred. Six
out of the nine have been on the stage, but only Marion, Fred, and I are
there still.

Two or three members of this large family, at the most, were in
existence when I first entered a theater in a professional capacity, so
I will leave them all alone for the present. I had better confess at
once that I don't remember this great event, and my sister Kate is
unkind enough to say that it never happened--to me! The story, she
asserts, was told of her. But without damning proofs she is not going to
make me believe it! Shall I be robbed of the only experience of my first
eight years of life? Never!

During the rehearsals of a pantomime in a Scottish town (Glasgow, I
think. Glasgow has always been an eventful place to me!), a child was
wanted for the Spirit of the Mustard-pot. What more natural than that my
father should offer my services? I had a shock of pale yellow hair, I
was small enough to be put into the property mustard-pot, and the
Glasgow stage manager would easily assume that I had inherited talent.
My father had acted with Macready in the stock seasons both at Edinburgh
and Glasgow, and bore a very high reputation with Scottish audiences.
But the stage manager and father alike reckoned without their actress!
When they tried to put me into the mustard-pot, I yelled lustily and
showed more lung-power than aptitude for the stage.

"Pit your child into the mustard-pot, Mr. Terry," said the stage
manager.

"D--n you and your mustard-pot, sir!" said my mortified father. "I won't
frighten my child for you or anyone else!"

But all the same he was bitterly disappointed at my first dramatic
failure, and when we reached home he put me in the corner to chasten me.
"_You'll_ never make an actress!" he said, shaking a reproachful finger
at me.

It is _my_ mustard-pot, and why Kate should want it, I can't think! She
hadn't yellow hair, and she couldn't possibly have behaved so badly. I
have often heard my parents say significantly that they had no trouble
with _Kate_! Before she was four, she was dancing a hornpipe in a
sailor's jumper, a rakish little hat, and a diminutive pair of white
ducks! Those ducks, marked "Kate Te