elief; but this
was too much. Mr. VACHELL had no business to give his play a title like
_Fishpingle_. He should have called it "Nature's Nobleman, or The
Tragical Romance of a Faithful Butler's Birth," and then I might have
known what to expect. As it was I felt aggrieved. It was not, of course,
a question of asking for my money back at the doors (critics, to be just
to them, never do this in the case of a complimentary seat), but I felt
I had a right to protest against this attempt to harrow my
heart-strings, attuned as they were to the key of comedy, with a painful
drama dating back to more than half a century before the rise of the
curtain, and with its chief actors all dead. And the irritating mystery
in which it was wrapped only made things worse. Further, I suffered a
considerable strain on both my head and my heart in consequence of
obscure hints (vaguely involving a photograph on his mantelpiece) as to
the reason why _Fishpingle_ remained a bachelor to the bitter end.

But I am ashamed to appear flippant, for Mr. AINLEY played with
exquisite feeling and a fine sincerity. And I have to thank Mr. VACHELL
for giving us some excellent studies of character--not character
developed before our eyes by circumstance (except perhaps a little at
the last), but admirably observed as a kind of fixture to be taken with
the house.

And if the play is not quite on the high level of Mr. GALSWORTHY'S _The
Eldest Son_, which it faintly recalls, it is much more worthy of Mr.
VACHELL'S gifts than the poor thing, _Penn_, which died so young. Also
he is very much more fortunate this time in his cast. Miss MARION TERRY,
as _Lady Pomfret_, was a pattern of sweet graciousness; and Mr. ALLAN
AYNESWORTH was at his happiest as _Sir Geoffrey_. And the two pairs of
lovers, Mr. CYRIL RAYMOND and Miss MAUD BELL above stairs, and Mr.
REGINALD BACH and Miss DORIS LYTTON below (they were really all of them
on the ground floor, the butler's room being the common trysting-place),
served as delightful examples of natural selection--both on their own
part and that of the management--and were as fresh and healthy as the
most eugenical could desire.

O. S.

* * * * *

"Daddy Long-Legs."

_Daddy Long-Legs_ is a pleasant American sentimental comedy made by JEAN
WEBSTER out of her very jolly book, and not so sticky as some of our
importations of the same general type. The four Acts are phases in the
development of _Ju