o to the theatre or car. You
will see no one, go nowhere.

If you are in earnest, you will simply endure the first year,--endure
and study,--and all for what? That, after dressing in the corner
farthest from the looking-glass, in a dismal room you would scarcely use
for your housemaid's brooms and dusters at home, you may stand for a few
moments in the background of some scene, and watch the leading lady
making the hit in the foreground. Will these few, well-dressed,
well-lighted, music-thrilled moments repay you for the loss of home
love, home comfort, home stardom?

To that bright, energetic girl, just home from school, overeducated,
perhaps, with nothing to do, restless,--forgive me,--vain, who wants to
go upon the stage, let me say: "Pause a moment, my dear, in your
comfortable home, and think of the unemployed actresses who are
suffering from actual want. Is there one among you, who, if you had the
chance, would care to strike the bread from the hand of one of these?
Ask God that the scales of unconscious selfishness may fall from your
eyes. Look about you and see if there is not some duty, however small,
the more irksome the better, that you may take from your mother's daily
load, some service you can render for father, brother, sister, aunt;
some daily household task, so small you may feel contemptuous of it,
yet some one must do it, and it may be a special thorn in that some
one's side. So surely as you force yourself to do the small things
nearest your hand, so surely will you be called upon for greater
service."

And oh! my dears, my dears, a loving mother's declaration, "I don't know
what I should do without my daughter," is sweeter and more precious than
the careless applause of strangers. Try, then, to be patient; find some
occupation, if it is nothing more than the weekly putting in order of
bureau drawers for some unusually careless member of the family; and,
having a good home, thank God and your parents, and stay in it.

And now, having added the insult of preaching at you to the injury of
disappointing you, I suppose you will accuse me of rank hypocrisy; but
you will be wrong, because with outstretched hands I stand and proclaim
myself your well-wisher and your friend.

_CHAPTER II

THE STAGE AND REAL LIFE_

How often we hear people say, "Oh, that's only a play!" or "That could
only happen in a play!" and yet it's surprising how often actors receive
proof positive that their plays are