cy more than
any one else in the company. She was always merry and kind, and I
admired her dainty, vivacious acting. In a burlesque called "Buckstone
at Home" (in which I played Britannia and came up a trap in a huge
pearl, which opened and disclosed me) Miss Keeley was delightful. One
evening the Prince and Princess of Wales (now our King and Queen) came
to see "Buckstone at Home." I believe it was the very first time they
had appeared at a theater since their marriage. They sat far back in the
royal box, the ladies and gentlemen of their suite occupying the front
seats. Miss Keeley, dressed as a youth, had a song in which she brought
forward by the hand some well-known characters in fairy tales and
nursery rhymes--Cinderella, Little Boy Blue, Jack and Jill, and so on,
and introduced them to the audience in a topical verse. One verse ran:

"Here's the Prince of Happyland,
Once he dwelt at the Lyceum;
Here's another Prince at hand,
But being _invisible_, you can't see him!"

Probably the Prince of Wales must have wished the singer at--well, not
at the Haymarket Theater; but the next minute he must have been touched
by the loyal greeting that he received. When the audience grasped the
situation, every one--stalls, boxes, circle, pit, gallery--stood up and
cheered and cheered again. Never was there a more extraordinary scene in
a playhouse--such excitement, such enthusiasm! The action of the play
came to a full stop, but not the cheers. They grew louder and louder,
until the Prince came forward and bowed his acknowledgments. I doubt if
any royal personage has ever been so popular in England as he was. Of
course he is popular as King too, but as Prince of Wales he came nearer
the people. They had more opportunities of seeing him, and they
appreciated his untiring efforts to make up by his many public
appearances for the seclusion in which the Queen lived.

1864

In the middle of the run of "The American Cousin" I left the stage and
married. Mary Meredith was the part, and I played it vilely. I was not
quite sixteen years old, too young to be married even in those days,
when every one married early. But I was delighted, and my parents were
delighted, although the disparity of age between my husband and me was
very great. It all seems now like a dream--not a clear dream, but a
fitful one which in the morning one tries in vain to tell. And even if I
could tell it, I would not. I was happy, because my fa